Divi m
Section
,KZ7
BIBLICAL COMMENTARY
THE OLD TESTAMENT,
C. F. KEIL, D,D. Am F. DELITZSCH, D.D.
PROFESSORS OF THEOLOGY.
VOLUME I.
THE PENTATEUCH*
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
BY THE
REV. JAMES MARTIN, B.A.
NOTTINGHAM.
EDINBURGH:
T. AND T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.
LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. DUBLIN : JOHN ROBERTSON & CO.
MDCCCLXVI.
t
MURRAY AN'T) OIRB, PRINTERS, EDrSBURSTL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE,
Page
7
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES.
§ 1. Prolegomena on the Old Testament and its leading divisions, 9
§ 2. Title, Contents, and Plan of the Books of Moses, . . 15
§ 3. Origin and Date of the Books of Moses, . . .17
§ 4. Historical Character of the Books of Moses, . . 28
THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES (GENESIS).
Introduction.
Contents, Design, and Plan of Genesis,
33
The Creation of the World (Chap. i. 1-ii. 3),
I. History of the Heavens and the Earth (Chap. ii. 4-iv. 26),
II. History of Adam (Chap, v.-vi. 8),
III. History of Noah (Chap. vi. 9-ix. 29),
IV. History of the Sons of Noah (Chap, x.-xi. 9),
V. History of Shem (Chap. xi. 10-26), .
VI. History of Terah (Chap. xi. 27-xxv. 11),
37
70
120
140
161
177
179
b TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Page
VII. History of Ishmael (Chap. xxv. 12-18), . . .264
VIII. History of Isaac (Chap. xxv. 19-xxxv.), . . . 266
IX. History of Esau (Chap, xxxvi.), .... 320
X. History of Jacob (Chap, xxxvii.-l.), . . . .329
THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES (EXODUS).
Introduction.
Contents and Arrangement of the Book of Exodus, . .415
Increase in the Number of the Israelites and their Bondage in Egypt
(Chap, i.), 418
Birth and Education of Moses ; Flight from Egypt, and Life in
Midian (Chap, ii.),
Call of Moses, and his return to Egypt (Chap. iii. and iv.),
Moses and Aaron sent to Pharaoh (Chap, v.-vii. 7),
Moses' Negotiations with Pharaoh (Chap. vii. 8-xi. 10),
The first three Plagues (Chap. vii. 14-viii. 15),
The three following Plagues (Chap. viii. 20-ix. 12),
The last three Plagues (Chap. ix. 13-xi. 10), . . .489
426
436
461
472
477
485
PREFACE.
HE Old Testament is the basis of the New. " God,
who at sundry times and in divers manners spake
unto the fathers by the prophets, hath spoken unto
us by His only-begotten Son." The Church of Christ is built
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. For Christ
came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil. As He
said to the Jews, " Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye
have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me ;" so also,
a short time before His ascension, He opened the understanding
of His disciples, that they might understand the Scriptures, and
beginning at Moses and all the prophets, expounded unto them
in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. With firm
faith in the truth of this testimony of our Lord, the fathers and
teachers of the Church in all ages have studied the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures, and have expounded the revelations of God
under the Old Covenant in learned and edifying works, unfold-
ing to the Christian community the riches of the wisdom and
knowledge of God which they contain, and impressing them upon
the heart, for doctrine, for reproof, for improvement, for instruc-
tion in righteousness. It was reserved for the Deism, Natural-
ism, and Rationalism which became so prevalent in the closing-
quarter of the eighteenth century, to be the first to undermine
the belief in the inspiration of the first covenant, and more and
more to choke up this well of saving truth ; so that at the present
day depreciation of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament is
8 PREFACE.
as widely spread as ignorance of what they really contain.1 At
the same time, very much has been done during the last thirty
years on the part of believers in divine revelation, to bring about
a just appreciation and correct understanding of the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures.
As a still further contribution towards the same result, it is
our present intention to issue a condensed Commentary upon the
whole of the Old Testament, in which we shall endeavour to
furnish not only a grammatical and historical exposition of the
facts and truths of divine revelation, but a biblical commentary
also, and thus to present to all careful readers of the Bible,
especially to divinity students and ministers of the Gospel, an
exegetlcal handbook, from which they may obtain some help to-
wards a full understanding of the Old Testament economy of
salvation, so far as the theological learning of the Church has
yet been able to fathom it, and possibly also an impulse to further
study and a deeper plunge into the unfathomable depths of the
Word of God.
May the Lord grant His blessing upon our labours, and
assist with His own Spirit and power a work designed to pro-
mote the knowledge of His holy Word.
C. F. KEIL.
1 This is unquestionably the case in Germany ; and although it is grow-
ingly applicable to England also, it is happily far from describing our present
condition. — Til.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES.
§ 1. PKOLEGOMENA ON THE OLD TESTAMENT AND ITS
LEADING DIVISIONS.
HE Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament contain the
divine revelations which prepared the way for the
redemption of fallen man by Christ. The revela-
tion of God commenced with the creation of the
heaven and the earth, when the triune God called into existence
a world teeming with organized and living creatures, whose life
and movements proclaimed the glory of their Creator ; whilst, in
the person of man, who was formed in the image of God, they
were created to participate in the blessedness of the divine life.
But when the human race, having yielded in its progenitors to
the temptation of the wicked one, and forsaken the path ap-
pointed by its Creator, had fallen a prey to sin and death, and
involved the whole terrestrial creation in the effects of its fall ;
the mercy of God commenced the work of restoration and re-
demption, which had been planned in the counsel of the triune
love before the foundation of the world. Hence, from the very
beginning, God not only manifested His eternal power and god-
head in the creation, preservation, and government of the world
and its inhabitants, but also revealed through His Spirit His
purpose and desire for the well-being of man. This manifesta-
PENT. — VOL. I. B
10 GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
tion of the personal God upon and in the world assumed, in
consequence of the fall, the form of a plan of salvation, rising
above the general providence and government of the world, and
filling the order of nature with higher powers of spiritual life, in
order that the evil, which had entered through sin into the
nature of man and passed from man into the whole world,
might be overcome and exterminated, the world be transformed
into a kingdom of God in which all creatures should follow
His holy will, and humanity glorified into the likeness of God
by the complete transfiguration of its nature. These mani-
festations of divine grace, which made the history of the world
" a development of humanity into a kingdom of God under the
educational and judicial superintendence of the living God,"
culminated in the incarnation of God in Christ to reconcile the
world unto Himself.
This act of unfathomable love divides the whole course of
the world's history into two periods — the times of preparation,
and the times of accomplishment and completion. The former
extend from the fall of Adam to the coming of Christ, and have
their culminating point in the economy of the first covenant.
The latter commence with the appearance of the Son of God on
earth in human form and human nature, and will last till His
return in glory, when He will change the kingdom of grace
into the kingdom of glory through the last judgment and the
creation of a new heaven and new earth out of the elements of
the old world, " the heavens and the earth which are now."
The course of the universe will then be completed and closed,
and time exalted into eternity (1 Cor. xv. 23-28 ; Kev. xx.
and xxi.).
If we examine the revelations of the first covenant, as they
have been handed down to us in the sacred scriptures of the
Old Testament, we can distinguish three stages of progressive
development: preparation for the kingdom of God in its Old
Testament form; its establishment through the mediatorial
office of Moses ; and its development and extension through
t!ic prophets. In all these periods God revealed Himself ami
His salvation to the human race by words and deeds. As the
Gospel of the New Covenant is not limited to the truths and
moral precepts taught by Christ and His apostles, but the fact
of the incarnation of God in Christ Jesus, and the work of re-
§ 1. PROLEGOMENA ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 11
demption completed by the God-man through deeds and suffer-
ings, death and resurrection, constitute the quintessence of the
Christian religion ; so also the divine revelations of the Old
Covenant are not restricted to the truths proclaimed by Moses,
and by the patriarchs before him and prophets after him, as to
the real nature of God, His relation to the world, and the divine
destiny of man, but consist even more of the historical events
by which the personal and living God manifested Himself to
men in His infinite love, in acts of judgment and righteousness,
of mercy and grace, that He might lead them back to Himself
as the only source of life. Hence all the acts of God in history,
by which the rising tides of iniquity have been stemmed, and
piety and morality promoted, including not only the judgments
of God which have fallen upon the earth and its inhabitants,
but the calling of individuals to be the upholders of His salva-
tion and the miraculous guidance afforded them, are to be re-
garded as essential elements of the religion of the Old Testament,
quite as much as the verbal revelations, by which God made
known His will and saving counsel through precepts and
promises to holy men, sometimes by means of higher and
supernatural light within them, at other times, and still more
frequently, through supernatural dreams, and visions, and theo-
phanies in which the outward senses apprehended the sounds
and words of human language. Revealed religion has not only
been introduced into the world by the special interposition of
God, but is essentially a history of what God has done to
establish His kingdom upon the earth ; in other words, to restore
a real personal fellowship between God whose omnipresence
fills the world, and man who was created in His image, in order
that God might renew and sanctify humanity by filling it with
His Spirit, and raise it to the glory of living and moving in
His fulness of life.
The way was opened for the establishment of this kingdom
in its Old Testament form by the call of Abraham, and his
election to be the father of that nation, with which the Lord
was about to make a covenant of grace as the source of blessing
to all the families of the earth. The first stage in the sacred
history commences with the departure of Abraham, in obedience
to the call of God, from his native country and his fathers
house, and reaches to the time when the posterity promised to
12 GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
the patriarch had expanded in Egypt into the twelve tribes of
Israel. The divine revelations during this period consisted of
promises, which laid the foundation for the whole future de-
velopment of the kingdom of God on earth, and of that special
guidance, by which God proved Himself, in accordance with
these promises, to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The second stage commences with the call of Moses and the
deliverance of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, and embraces
the establishment of the Old Testament kingdom of God, not
only through the covenant which God made at Sinai with the
people of Israel, whom He had redeemed with mighty deeds out
of Egypt, but also through the national constitution, which He
gave in the Mosaic law to the people whom He had chosen as
His inheritance, and which regulated the conditions of their
covenant relation. In this constitution the eternal truths and
essential characteristics of the real, spiritual kingdom are set
forth in earthly forms and popular institutions, and are so far
incorporated in them, that the visible forms shadow forth
spiritual truths, and contain the germs of that spiritual and
glorified kingdom in which God will be all in all. In conse-
quence of the design of this kingdom being merely to prepare
and typify the full revelation of God in His kingdom, its pre-
dominant character was that of law, in order that, whilst pro-
ducing a deep and clear insight into human sinfulness and
divine holiness, it might excite an earnest craving for de-
liverance from sin and death, and for the blessedness of living
in the peace of God. But the laws and institutions of this
kingdom not only impressed upon the people the importance of
consecrating their whole life to the Lord God, they also opened
up to them the way of holiness and access to the grace of God,
whence power might be derived to walk in righteousness before
God, through the institution of a sanctuary which the Lord of
heaven and earth filled with His gracious presence, and of a
sacrificial altar which Israel might approach, and there in the
blood of the sacrifice receive the forgiveness of its sins and re-
joice in the gracious fellowship of its God.
The third stage in the Old Testament history embraces the
progressive development of the kingdom of God established upon
Sinai, from the death of Moses, the lawgiver, till the extinction
of prophecy at the close of the Babylonian captivity. During
§ 1 PROLEGOMENA ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 13
this lengthened period God revealed Himself as the covenant
God and the monarch in His kingdom, partly by the special
protection which He afforded to His people, so long as they were
faithful to Him, or when they returned to Him after a time of
apostasy and sought His aid, either by raising up warlike heroes
to combat the powers of the world, or by miraculous displays of
His own omnipotence, and partly by the mission of prophets
endowed with the might of His own Spirit, who kept His law
and testimony before the minds of the people, denounced judg-
ment upon an apostate race, and foretold to the righteous the
Messiah's salvation, attesting their divine mission, wherever it
was necessary, by the performance of miraculous deeds. In the
first centuries after Moses there was a predominance of the direct
acts of God to establish His kingdom in Canaan, and exalt it to
power and distinction in comparison with the nations round
about. But after it had attained its highest earthly power, and
when the separation of the ten tribes from the house of David
had been followed by the apostasy of the nation from the Lord,
and the kingdom of God was hurrying rapidly to destruction,
God increased the number of prophets, and thus prepared the
way by the word of prophecy for the full revelation of His sal-
vation in the establishment of a new covenant.
Thus did the works of God go hand in hand with His reve-
lation in the words of promise, of law, and of prophecy, in the
economy of the Old Covenant, not merely as preparing the way
for the introduction of the salvation announced in the law and
in prophecy, but as essential factors of the plan of God for the
redemption of man, as acts which regulated and determined the
whole course of the world, and contained in the germ the
consummation of all things ; — the law, as a " schoolmaster to
bring to Christ," by training Israel to welcome the Saviour ;
and prophecy, as proclaiming His advent with growing clearness,
and even shedding upon the dark and deadly shades of a world
at enmity against God, the first rays of the dawn of that coming
day of salvation, in which the Sun of Righteousness would rise
upon the nations with healing beneath His wings.
As the revelation of the first covenant may be thus divided
into three progressive stages, so the documents containing this
revelation, the sacred books of the Old Testament, have also been
divided into three classes — the Laic, the Prophets, and the Hagio-
14 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
grapha or holy writings. But although this triple classification
of the Old Testament canon has reference not merely to three
stages of canonization, but also to three degrees of divine inspira-
tion, the three parts of the Old Testament do not answer to the
three historical stages in the development of the first covenant.
The only division sustained by the historical facts is that of Law
and Prophets. These two contain all that was objective in the
Old Testament revelation, and so distributed that the Thorah,
as the five books of Moses are designated even in the Scriptures
themselves, contains the groundwork of the Old Covenant, or
that revelation of God in words and deeds which laid the foun-
dation of the kingdom of God in its Old Testament form, and
also those revelations of the primitive ages and the early history
of Israel which prepared the way for this kingdom ; whilst the
Prophets, on the other hand, contain the revelations which helped
to preserve and develop the Israelitish kingdom of God, from
the death of Moses till its ultimate dissolution. The Prophets
are also subdivided into two classes. The first of these embraces
the so-called earlier prophets (jprophetce priores), i.e. the prophe-
tical books of history (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the Kings),
which contain the revelation of God as fulfilled in the historical
guidance of Israel by judges, kings, high priests, and prophets ;
the second, the later prophets (prophetce posteriores), i.e. the pro-
phetical books of prediction (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the
twelve minor prophets), which contain the progressive testimony
to the counsel of God, delivered in connection with the acts of
God during the period of the gradual decay of the Old Testament
kingdom. The former, or historical books, are placed among the
Prophets in the Old Testament canon, not merely because they
narrate the acts of prophets in Israel, but still more, because they
exhibit the development of the Israelitish kingdom of God from
a prophet's point of view, and, in connection with the historical
development of the nation and kingdom, set forth the progressive
development of the revelation of God. The predictions of the
later prophets, which were not composed till some centuries after
the division of the kingdom, were placed in the same class with
these, as being " the national records, which contained the pledge
of the heavenly King, that the fall of His people and kingdom
in the world had not taken place in opposition to His will, but
expressly in accordance with it, and that He had not therefore
§ 2. TITLE, CONTENTS, AND PLAN OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES. 15
given up His people and kingdom, but at some future time,
when its inward condition allowed, would restore it again in new
and more exalted power and glory" (Auberleri).
The other writings of the Old Covenant are all grouped
together in the third part of the Old Testament canon under the
title of ypcujieia, Scripta, or Hagiograplia, as being also composed
under the influence of the Holy Ghost. The Hagiograplia differ
from the prophetical books both of history and prediction in
their peculiarly subjective character, and the individuality of
their representations of the facts and truths of divine revelation ;
a feature common to all the writings in this class, notwithstand-
ing their diversities in form and subject-matter. They include,
(1) the poetical books : Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Song of Solomon,
Ecclesiastes, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, — which bear
witness of the spiritual fruits already brought to maturity in the
faith, the thinking, and the life of the righteous by the revealed
religion of the Old Covenant ; — (2) the book of Daniel, who lived
and laboured at the Chaldean and Persian court, with its rich
store of divinely inspired dreams and visions, prophetic of the
future history of the kingdom of God ; — (3) the historical books
of Ruth, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, which depict
the history of the government of David and his dynasty, with
special reference to the relation in which the kings stood to the
Levitical worship in the temple, and the fate of the remnant of
the covenant nation, which was preserved in the downfall of the
kingdom of Juclah, from the time of its captivity until its return
from Babylon, and its re-establishment in Jerusalem and Judah.
§ 2. TITLE, CONTENTS, AND PLAN OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES.
The five books of Moses (fj nevrdrevxps sc. ftlftXos, Penta-
teuchus sc. liber, the book in five parts) are called in the Old
Testament Sepher hattorah, the Law-book (Deut. xxxi. 26 ; Josh,
i. 8, etc.), or, more concisely still, Hattorah, 6 vo/aos, the Law
(Neh. viii. 2, 7, 13, etc.), — a name descriptive both of the
contents of the work and of its importance in relation to the
economy of the Old Covenant. The word rnin, a Hiphil noun
from nnirij demonstrare, docere, denotes instruction.. The Thorah
16 GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
is the book of instruction, which Jehovah gave through Moses
to the people of Israel, and is therefore called Torath Jehovah
(2 Chron. xvii. 9, xxxiv. 14 ; Neh. ix. 3) and Torath Mosheh
(Josh. viii. 31 ; 2 Kings xiv. 6 ; Neh. viii. 1), or Sepher Mosheh,
the book of Moses (2 Chron. xxv. 4, xxxv. 12 ; Ezra vi. 18 ;
Neh. xiii. 1). Its contents are a divine revelation in words and
deeds, or rather the fundamental revelation, through which
Jehovah selected Israel to be His people, and gave to them their
rule of life (vo/zo?), or theocratical constitution as a people and
kingdom.
The entire work, though divided into five parts, forms both
in plan and execution one complete and carefully constructed
whole, commencing with the creation, and reaching to the death
of Moses, the mediator of the Old Covenant. The foundation
for the divine revelation was really laid in and along with the
creation of the world. The world which God created is the
scene of a history embracing both God and man, the site for
the kingdom of God in its earthly and temporal form. All that
the first book contains with reference to the early history of the
human race, from Adam to the patriarchs of Israel, stands in
a more or less immediate relation to the kingdom of God in
Israel, of which the other books describe the actual establish-
ment. The second depicts the inauguration of this kingdom
at Sinai. Of the third and fourth, the former narrates the
spiritual, the latter the political, organization of the kingdom
by facts and legal precepts. The fifth recapitulates the whole
in a hortatory strain, embracing both history and legislation,
and impresses it upon the hearts of the people, for the purpose
of arousing true fidelity to the covenant, and securing its
lasting duration. The economy of the Old Covenant having
been thus established, the revelation of the law closes with the
death of its mediator.
The division of the work into five books was, therefore, the
most simple and natural that could be adopted, according to the
contents and plan which we have thus generally described. The
three middle books contain the history of the establishment of
the Old Testament kingdom ; the first sketches the preliminary
history, by which the way was prepared for its introduction ;
and the fifth recapitulates and confirms it. This fivefold divi-
sion was not made by some later editor, but is founded in the
§ 3. ORIGIN AND DATE OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES. 17
entire plan of the law, and is therefore to be regarded as
original. For even the three central books, which contain a
continuous history of the establishment of the theocracy, are
divided into three by the fact, that the middle portion, the third
book of the Pentateuch, is separated from the other two, not
only by its contents, but also by its introduction, chap. i. 1, and
its concluding formula, chap, xxvii. 34.
§ 3. ORIGIN AND DATE OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES.
The five books of Moses occupy the first place in the canon
of the Old Testament, not merely on account of their peculiar
character as the foundation and norm of all the rest, but also
because of their actual date, as being the oldest writings in the
canon, and the groundwork of the whole of the Old Testament
literature ; all the historical, prophetic, and poetical works of the
Israelites subsequent to the Mosaic era pointing back to the
law of Moses as their primary source and type, and assum-
ing the existence not merely of the law itself, but also of a book
of the law, of precisely the character and form of the five books
of Moses. In all the other historical books of the Old Testa-
ment not a single trace is to be found of any progressive expan-
sion of, or subsequent additions to, the statutes and laws of
Israel ; for the account contained in 2 Kings xxii. and 2 Chron.
xxxiv. of the discovery of the book of the law, i.e. of the copy
placed by the side of the ark, cannot be construed, without a
wilful perversion of the words, into a historical proof, that the
Pentateuch or the book of Deuteronomy was composed at that
time, or that it was then brought to light for the first time.1 On
1 Vailunqer seeks to give probability to Ewalcfs idea of the progressive
growth of the Mosaic legislation, and also of the Pentateuch, during a period
of nine or ten centuries, by the following argument : — " We observe in the
law-books of the ancient Parsees, in the Zendavesta, and in the historical
writings of India and Arabia, that it was a custom in the East to supple-
ment the earlier works, and after a lapse of time to reconstruct them, so
that whilst the root remained, the old stock was pruned and supplanted
by a new one. Later editors constantly brought new streams to the old,
until eventually the circle of legends and histories was closed, refined, and
transfigured. Now, as the Israelites belonged to the same great family as
18 GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
the contrary, we find that, from the time of Joshua to the age of
Ezra and Nehemiah, the law of Moses and his book of the law
were the only valid and unalterable code by which the national
life was regulated, either in its civil or its religious institutions.
Numerous cases undoubtedly occur, in which different com-
mands contained in the law were broken, and particular ordi-
nances were neglected ; but even in the anarchical and troubled
times of the Judges, public worship was performed in the
tabernacle at Shiloh by priests of the tribe of Levi according
to the directions of the Thorah, and the devout made their
periodical pilgrimages to the house of God at the appointed
feasts to worship and sacrifice before Jehovah at Shiloh (Judg.
xviii. 31, cf. Josh, xviii. 1 ; 1 Sam. i. 1-iv. 4). On the estab-
lishment of the monarchy (1 Sam. viii.-x.), the course adopted
was in complete accordance with the laws contained in Deut.
xvii. 14 sqq. The priesthood and the place of worship were
reorganized by David and Solomon in perfect harmony with
the law of Moses. Jehoshaphat made provision for the instruc-
tion of the people in the book of the law, and reformed the
jurisdiction of the land according to its precepts (2 Chron.
xvii. 7 sqq., xix. 4 sqq.). Hezekiah and Josiah not only abo-
lished the idolatry introduced by their predecessors, as Asa
had done, but restored the worship of Jehovah, and kept the
Passover as a national feast, according to the regulations of the
Mosaic law (2 Chron. xxix.-xxxi. ; 2 Kings xxiii. ; and 2 Chron.
xxxiv. and xxxv.). Even in the kingdom of the ten tribes,
which separated from the Davidic kingdom, the law of Moses
retained its force not merely in questions of civil law, but also
in connection with the religious life of the devout, in spite of
the rest of the Oriental nations (sic .' so that the Parsees and Hindoos are
Semitic !), and had almost everything in common with them so far as dress,
manners, and customs were concerned, there is ground for the supposition,
that their literature followed the same course" (Herzog's Cijcl.). But to
this we reply, that the literature of a nation is not an outward thing to be
put on and worn like a dress, or adopted like some particular custom or
habit, until something more convenient or acceptable induces a change ;
and that there is a ccnsiderable difference between Polytheism and heathen
mythology on the one hand, and Monotheism and revealed religion on the
other, which forbids us to determine the origin of the religious writings of
the Israelites by the standard of the Indian Veda and Purana, or the
different portions of the ZenJavesta.
§ 3. ORIGIN AND DATE OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES. 19
the worship established by Jeroboam in opposition to the law,
as we may clearly see from the labours of Elijah and Elisha,
of Hosea and Amos, within that kingdom. Moreover, all the
historical books are richly stored with unmistakeable allusions
and references to the law, which furnish a stronger proof than
the actnal mention of the book of the law, how deeply the
Thorah of Moses had penetrated into the religious, civil, and
political life of Israel. (For proofs, see my Introduction to the
Old Test. § 34, i.)
In precisely the same way prophecy derived its authority and
influence throughout from the law of Moses ; for all the prophets,
from the first to the last, invariably kept the precepts and pro-
hibitions of the law before the minds of the people. They judged,
reproved, and punished the conduct, the sins, the crimes of the
people according to its rules ; they resumed and expanded its
threats and promises, proclaiming their certain fulfilment ; and
finally, they employed the historical events of the books of Moses
for the purpose of reproof or consolation, frequently citing the
very words of the Thorah, especially the threats and promises of
Lev. xxvi. and Dent, xxviii., to give force and emphasis to their
warnings, exhortations, and prophecies. And, lastly, the poetry,
that flourished under David and Solomon, had also its roots in
the law, which not only scans, illumines, and consecrates all the
emotions and changes of a righteous life in the Psalms, and all
the relations of civil life in the Proverbs, but makes itself heard
in various ways in the book of Job and the Song of Solomon,
and is even commended in Ecclesiastes (chap. xii. 13) as the
sum and substance of true wisdom.
Again, the internal character of the book is in perfect har-
mony with this indisputable fact, that the Thorah, as Delitzsch
says, " is as certainly presupposed by the whole of the post-
Mosaic history and literature, as the root is by the tree." For
it cannot be shown to bear any traces of post-Mosaic times and
circumstances ; on the contrary, it has the evident stamp of
Mosaic origin both in substance and in style. All that has
been adduced in proof of the contrary by the so-called modern
criticism is founded either upon misunderstanding and misinter-
pretation, or upon a misapprehension of the peculiarities of the
Semitic style of historical writing, or lastly upon doctrinal pre-
judices, in other words, upon a repudiation of all the super-
20 GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
natural characteristics of divine revelation, whether in the form
of miracle or prophecy. The evidence of this will be given in
the Commentary itself, in the exposition of the passages which
have been supposed to contain either allusions to historical cir-
cumstances and institutions of a later age, or contradictions and
repetitions that are irreconcilable with the Mosaic origin of
the work. The Thorah " answers all the expectations which
a study of the personal character of Moses could lead us justly
to form of any work composed by him. He was one of those
master-spirits, in whose life the rich maturity of one historical
period is associated with the creative commencement of another,
in whom a long past culminates, and a far-reaching future
strikes its roots. In him the patriarchal age terminated, and
the period of the law began ; consequently we expect to find
him, as a sacred historian, linking the existing revelation with
its patriarchal and primitive antecedents. As the mediator of
the law, he was a prophet, and, indeed, the greatest of all pro-
phets : we expect from him, therefore, an incomparable, pro-
phetic insight into the ways of God in both past and future.
He was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians ; a work
from his hand, therefore, would show, in various intelligent
allusions to Egyptian customs, laws, and incidents, the well-
educated native of that land" (Delitzsch). In all these respects,
not only does the Thorah satisfy in a general manner the de-
mands which a modest and unprejudiced criticism makes upon
a work of Moses ; but on a closer investigation of its contents, it
presents so many marks of the Mosaic age and Mosaic spirit,
that it is a priori probable that Moses was its author. How
admirably, for example, was the way prepared for the revela-
tion of God at Sinai, by the revelations recorded in Genesis
of the primitive and patriarchal times ! The same God who,
when making a covenant with Abram, revealed Himself to him
in a vision as Jehovah who had brought him out of Ur of the
Chaldees (Gen. xv. 7), and who afterwards, in His character
of El SnADDAi, i.e. the omnipotent God, maintained the cove-
nant which He had made with him (Gen. xvii. 1 sqq.), giving
him in Isaac the heir of the promise, and leading and preserving
both Isaac and Jacob in their way, appeared to Moses at Horeb,
to manifest Himself to the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
in the full significance of His name Jehovah, by redeeming
§ 3. ORIGIN AND DATE OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES. 2 1
the children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, and by ac-
cepting them as the people of His possession (Ex. vi. 2 sqq.).
How magnificent are the prophetic revelations contained in the
TJiorah, embracing the whole future history of the kingdom of
God till its glorious consummation at the end of the world !
Apart from such promises as Gen. xii. 1-3, Ex. xix. 5, 6, and
others, which point to the goal and termination of the ways of
God from the very commencement of His work of salvation ;
not only does Moses in the ode sung at the Red Sea behold his
people brought safely to Canaan, and Jehovah enthroned as the
everlasting King in the sanctuary established by Himself (Ex.
xv. 13, 17, 18), but from Sinai and in the plains of Moab he
surveys the future history of his people, and the land to which
they are about to march, and sees the whole so clearly in the
light of the revelation received in the law, as to foretell to a
people -just delivered from the power of the heathen, that they
will again be scattered among the heathen for their apostasy
from the Lord, and the beautiful land, which they are about
for the first time to take possession of, be once more laid waste
(Lev. xxvi.; Deut. xxviii.-xxx., but especially xxxii.). And with
such exactness does he foretell this, that all the other prophets, in
their predictions of the captivity, base their prophecies upon the
words of Moses, simply extending the latter in the light thrown
upon them by the historical circumstances of their own times.1
How richly stored, again, are all five books with delicate and
casual allusions to Egypt, its historical events, its manners,
customs, and natural history! Hengstenberg has accumulated
a great mass of proofs, in his " Egypt and the Books of Moses,"
of the most accurate acquaintance on the part of the author of
the Thorah, with Egypt and its institutions. To select only a
few — and those such as are apparently trivial, and introduced
quite incidentally into either the history or the laws, but which
are as characteristic as they are conclusive, — we would mention
the thoroughly Egyptian custom of men carrying baskets upon
their heads, in the dream of Pharaoh's chief baker (Gen. xl. 16);
the shaving of the beard (xli. 14) ; prophesying with the cup
1 Yet we never find in these words of Moses, or in the Pentateuch
generally, the name Jehovah Sabaoth, which was unknown in the Mosaic
age, but was current as early as the time of Samuel and David, and so
favourite a name with all the prophets.
22 GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
(xliv. 5) ; the custom of embalming dead bodies and placing
them in sarcophagi (1. 2, 3, and 26) ; the basket made of the
papyrus and covered with asphalt and pitch (Ex. ii. 3), the
prohibition against lying with cattle (Ex. xxii. 19 ; Lev. xviii.
23, xx. 15, 16), and against other unnatural crimes which were
common in Egypt; the remark that Hebron was built seven
years before Zoan in Egypt (Num. xiii. 22) ; the allusion in
Num. xi. 5 to the ordinary and favourite food of Egypt ; the
Egyptian mode of watering (Deut. xi. 10, 11) ; the reference to
the Egyptian mode of whipping (Deut. xxv. 2, 3) ; the express
mention of the eruptions and diseases of Egypt (Deut. vii. 15,
xxviii. 27, 35, 60), and many other things, especially in the ac-
count of the plagues, which tally so closely with the natural
history of that country (Ex. vii. 8-x. 23).
In its general form, too, the Thorah answers the expecta-
tions which we are warranted in entertaining of a work of
Moses. In such a work we should expect to find " the unity of
a magnificent plan ; comparative indifference to the mere de-
tails, but a comprehensive and spirited grasp of the whole and
of salient points ; depth and elevation combined with the
greatest simplicity. In the magnificent unity of plan, we shall
detect the mighty leader and ruler of a people numbering tens of
thousands ; in the childlike simplicity, the shepherd of Midian,
who fed the sheep of Jethro far away from the varied scenes
of Egypt in the fertile clefts of the mountains of Sinai"
{Delitzsch). The unity of the magnificent plan of the Thorah
we have already shown in its most general outlines, and shall
point out still more minutely in our commentary upon the sepa-
rate books. The childlike naivete of the shepherd of Midian
is seen most distinctly in those figures and similes drawn from
the immediate contemplation of nature, which we find in the
more rhetorical portions of the work. To this class belong such
poetical expressions as " covering the eye of the earth " (Ex. x.
5, 15 ; Num. xxii. 5, 11) ; such similes as these: "as a nursing
father beareth the suckling" (Num. xi. 12) ; " as a man doth
bear his son " (Deut. i. 31) ; " as the ox licketh up the grass of
the field" (Num. xxii. 4); "as sheep which have no shepherd"
(Num. xxvii. 17); "as bees do" (Deut. i. 44) ; "as the eagle
flieth" (Deut. xxviii. 49) ; — and again the figurative expressions
" borne on eagles' wings" (Ex. xix. 4, cf. Deut. xxxii. 11) ; " de-
§ 3. ORIGIN AND DATE OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES. 23
vouring fire " (Ex. xxiv. 17 ; Deut. iv. 24, ix. 3) ; " head and tail"
(Deut. xxviii. 13, 44) ; " a root that beareth gall and wormwood"
(Deut. xxix. 18) ; "wet to dry" (Deut. xxix. 19), and many others.
To this we may add the antiquated character of the style,
which is common to all five books, and distinguishes them essen-
tially from all the other writings of the Old Testament. This
appears sometimes in the use of words, of forms, or of phrases,
which subsequently disappeared from the spoken language, and
which either do not occur again, or are only used here and
there by the writers of the time of the captivity and afterwards,
and then are taken from the Pentateuch itself; at other times,
in the fact that words and phrases are employed in the books
of Moses in simple prose, which were afterwards restricted to
poetry alone ; or else have entirely changed their meaning.
For example, the pronoun tfin and the noun 1JU are used in the
Pentateuch for both genders, whereas the forms N"1? and nnj?j
were afterwards employed for the feminine ; whilst the former
of these occurs only eleven times in the Pentateuch, the latter
only once. The demonstrative pronoun is spelt ?Kn, afterwards
n^^ J the infinitive construct of the verbs n"f> is often written ,i
or i without n, as \&?: Gen. xxxi. 38, inb>J? Ex. xviii. 18, ntri Gen.
xlviii. 11 ; the third person plural of verbs is still for the most
part the full form fy not merely in the imperfect, but also here
and there in the perfect, whereas afterwards it was softened into
!|. Such words, too, as S'OX an ear of corn ; nnnpx a sack ; "iri3
dissecuit hostias ; "irm a piece ; ?H3 a young bird ; 1ST a present ;
*J2t to present ; ^<?"in a sickle ; Wt? a basket ; ^VJ] an existing,
living thing ; H)pO a veil, covering ; 1j?jJ a sprout (applied to
men) ; "IKB> a blood-relation ; such forms as "MT for 13} mas,
2W3 for B03 a lamb ; phrases like Vfcjrta P|DW, " gathered to his
people ; " and many others which I have given in my Introduc-
tion,— you seek in vain in the other writings of the Old Testa-
ment, whilst the words and phrases, which are used there instead,
are not found in the books of Moses.
And whilst the contents and form of the Thorah bear wit-
ness that it belongs to the Mosaic age, there are express state-
ments to the effect that it was written by Moses himself. Even
in the central books, certain events and laws are said to have
been written down. After the defeat of the Amalekites, for
example, Moses received orders from God to write the command
24 GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
to exterminate Amalek, for a memorial, in the book. (i.e. a book
appointed for a record of the acts of the Lord in Israel : Ex.
xvii. 14). According to Ex. xxiv. 3, 4, 7, Moses wrote the
words of the covenant (Ex. xx. 2-17) and the laws of Israel (Ex.
xxi.-xxiii.) in the book of the covenant, and read them to the
people. Again, in Ex. xxxiv. 27, Moses is commanded to write
the words of the renewed covenant, which he no doubt did. And
lastly, it is stated in Num. xxxiii. 2, that he wrote an account
of the different encampments of the Israelites in the desert,
according to the commandment of God. It is true that these
statements furnish no direct evidence of the Mosaic authorship
of the whole Thorah ; but from the fact that the covenant of
Sinai was to be concluded, and actually was concluded, on the
basis of a written record of the laws and privileges of the cove-
nant, it may be inferred with tolerable certainty, that Moses
committed all those laws to writing, which were to serve the
people as an inviolable rule of conduct towards God. And from
the record, which God commanded to be made, of the two his-
torical events already mentioned, it follows unquestionably, that
it was the intention of God, that all the more important mani-
festations of the covenant fidelity of Jehovah should be handed
down in writing, in order that the people in all time to come
might study and lay them to heart, and their fidelity be thus
preserved towards their covenant God. That Moses recognised
this divine intention, and for the purpose of upholding the work
already accomplished through his mediatorial office, committed
to writing not merely the whole of the law, but the entire work
of the Lord in and for Israel, — in other words, that he wrote. out
the whole Thorah in the form in which it has come down to us,
and handed over the work to the nation before his departure
from this life, that it might be preserved and obeyed, — is dis-
tinctly stated at the conclusion of the Thorah, in Deut. xxxi. 9,
24. When he had delivered his last address to the people, and
appointed Joshua to lead them into their promised inheritance,
" he wrote this Thorah, and delivered it unto the priests, the sons
of Levi, and unto all the elders of Israel " (Deut. xxxi. 9), with a
command that it was to be read to the people every seven years
at the feast of Tabernacles, when they came to appear before the
Lord at the sanctuary. Thereupon, it is stated (vers. 24 sqq.)
that " it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing
§ 3. ORIGIN AND DATE OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES. 25
the words of this law in a book, to the very close, that Moses
commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of
the Lord, saying : Take this book of the law, and put it by the
side of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, that it
may be there for a witness against thee," etc. This double
testimony to the Mosaic authorship of the Thorali is confirmed
still further by the command in Dent. xvii. 18, that the king to
be afterwards chosen should cause a copy of this law to be
written in a book by the Levitical priests, and should read
therein all the days of his life, and by the repeated allusions
to " the words of this law, which are written in this book," or
"in the book of the law" (Deut. xxviii. 58, 61, xxix. 21, xxx.
10, xxxi. 26) ; for the former command and the latter allusions
are not intelligible on any other supposition, than that Moses was
engaged in writing the book of the law, and intended to hand
it over to the nation in a complete form previous to his death ;
though it may not have been finished when the command itself
was written down and the words in question were uttered, but,
as Deut. xxxi. 9 and 24 distinctly affirm, may have been com-
pleted after his address to the people, a short time before his
death, by the arrangement and revision of the earlier portions,
and the addition of the fifth and closing book.
The validity of this evidence must not be restricted, how-
ever, to the fifth book of the Thorah, viz. Deuteronomy, alone ;
it extends to all five books, that is to say, to the wdiole connected
work. For it cannot be exegetically proved from Deuteronomy,
that the expression, "this law," in every passage of the book
from chap. i. 5 to xxxi. 24 relates to the so-called Deuterosis of
the law, i.e. to the fifth book alone, or that Deuteronomy was
written before the other four books, the contents of which it in-
variably presupposes. Nor can it be historically proved that tk *
command respecting the copy of the law to be made for the
future king, and the regulations for the reading of the law at
the feast of Tabernacles, were understood by the Jews as refer-
ring to Deuteronomy only. Josephus says nothing about any
such limitation, but speaks, on the contrary, of the reading of
the law generally (6 apj^tepem . . . dvayLvcoa/cera) tovs vofiovs
iracn, Ant. iv. 8, 12). The Kabbins, too, understand the words
"this law," in Deut. xxxi. 9 and 24, as relating to the whole
Thorah from Gen. i. to Deut. xxxiv., and only differ in opinion
PENT. — VOL. I. C
2G GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
as to the question whether Moses wrote the whole work at once
after his last address, or whether he composed the earlier books
gradually, after the different events and the publication of the
law, and then completed the whole by writing Deuteronomy and
appending it to the four books in existence already.1
1 Cf. H&vernicJc's Introduction, and the opinions of the Rabbins on
Deut. xxxi. 9 and 24 in Meyer's adnotatt. ad Seder Olam. But as Delitzsch
still maintains that Deut. xxxi. 9 sqq. merely proves that the book of
Deuteronomy was written by Moses, and observes in support of this, that
at the time of the second temple it was an undoubted custom to read that
book alone at the feast of Tabernacles in the year of release, as is evident
from Sota, c. 7, and a passage of Sifri (one of the earliest Midrashim of the
school of Eab, born c. 165, d. 247), quoted by Rashi on Sota 41, we will
give a literal translation of the two passages for the benefit of those who
may not possess the books themselves, that they may judge for themselves
what ground there is for this opinion. The passage from the Sota is headed,
sectio regis quomodo, i.e. sectio a Rege prselegenda, quibus ritibus recitata
est, and runs thus : — " Transacta festivitatis tabernaculorum prima die,
completo jam septimo anno et octavo ineunte, parabant Regi suggestum
ligneum in Atrio, huic insidebat juxta illud : a fine septem annorum, etc.
(Deut. xxxi. 10). Turn iEdituus (mere correctly, diaconus Synagogse)
sum to libro legis tradidit eum Primario ccetus (synagogse), hie porrigebat
eum Antistiti, Antistes Summo Sacerdoti, Summus Sacerdos denique exhi-
bebat ipsum regi. Rex autem stans eum accipiebat, verum prselegens con-
sedit." Then follows a Haggada on a reading of King Agrippa's, and it
proceeds : — " Prselegit vero (rex) ab initio Deuteronomii usque ad ilia :
Audi Israel (c. 4, 4), quae et ipse prselegit. Turn subjecit (ex. c. 11, 13) :
Eritque si serio auscultaveritis, etc. Dehinc (ex. c. 14, 22) : Fideliter
decimato, etc. Postea (ex. c. 26, 22) : Cum absolveritis dare omnes deci-
mas, etc. Deinde sectionem de Rege (quae habetur, c. 17, 14 sqq.). Deni-
que benedictiones et exsecrationes (ex. cc. 27 et 28) usque dum totam
illam sectionem finiret." But how can a mere tradition of the Talmud like
this, respecting the formalities with which the king was to read certain
sections of the Thorah on the second day of the feast of Tabernacles, be
adduced as a proof that in the year of release the book of Deuteronomy
alone, or certain extracts from it, were read to the assembled people? Even
if this rule was connected with the Mosaic command in Deut. xxxi. 10, or
derived from it, it does not follow in the remotest degree, that either by
ancient or modern Judaism the public reading of the Thorah appointed by
Moses was restricted to this one reading of the king's. And even if the
precept in the Talmud was so understood or interpreted by certain Rabbins,
the other passage quoted by Delitzsch from Sifri in support of his opinion,
proves that this was not the prevailing view of the Jewish synagogue, or
of modern Judaism. The passage runs thus : " He (the king) shall write
flN-TH minn mcb fix- He shall do this himself, for he is not to use his
ancestor's copy. Mishneh in itself means nothing more than Thorah Mishneh
§ 3. ORIGIN AND DATE OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES. 27
Still less can this evidence be set aside or rendered doubtful
by the objection, offered by Vaihinger, that " Moses cannot
have related his own death and burial (Deut. xxxiv.) j and yet
the account of these forms an essential part of the work as we
possess it now, and in language and style bears a close resem-
blance to Num. xxvii. 12-23." The words in chap. xxxi. 24,
" When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a
book to the end," are a sufficient proof of themselves that the
account of his death was added by a different hand, without its
needing to be distinctly stated.1 The argument, moreover, re-
(Deuteronomy). How do I know that the other words of the Thorah were to
be written also ? This is evident from the Scriptures, which add, ' to do all
the words of this law.' But if this be the case, why is it called Mishneh
Thorah ? Because there would be a transformation of the law. Others say
that on the day of assembly Deuteronomy alone was read." From this passage
of the ancient Midrash we learn, indeed, that many of the Rabbins were of
opinion, that at the feast of Tabernacles in the sabbatical year, the book of
Deuteronomy only was to be read, but that the author himself was of a differ-
ent opinion ; and, notwithstanding the fact that he thought the expression
Mishneh Thorah must be understood as applying to the Deuterosis of the law,
still maintained that the law, of which the king was to have a copy taken,
was not only Deuteronomy, but the whole of the Pentateuch, and that he
endeavoured to establish this opinion by a strange but truly rabbinical in-
terpretation of the word Mishneh as denoting a transformation of the law.
1 The weakness of the argument against the Mosaic authorship of the
Thorah, founded upon the account of the death and burial of Moses, may
be seen from the analogous case cited by Hengstenberg in his Dissertations
on the Pentateuch. In the last book of the Commentarii de statu religionis
et reipublicas Carolo V. Csesare, by J. Sleidanus, the account of Charles
having abdicated and sailed to Spain is followed, without any break, by the
words: " Octobris die ultimo Joannes Sleidanus, J. U. L., vir et propter
eximias animi dotes et singularem doctrinam omni laude dignus, Argentorati e
vita decedit, atque ibidem honorijice sepelitur.'1'' This account of the death
and burial of Sleidan is given in every edition of his Commentarii, contain-
ing the 26th book, which the author added to the 25 books of the first
edition of April 1555, for the purpose of bringing down the life of Charles
V. to his abdication in September 1556. Even in the very first edition,
Argentorati 1558, it is added without a break, and inserted in the table of
contents as an integral part of the book, without the least intimation that
it is by a different hand. " No doubt the writer thought that it was quite
unnecessary to distinguish himself from the author of the work, as every-
body would know that a man could not possibly write an account of his
own death and burial." Yet any one who should appeal to this as a proof
that Sleidan was not the author of the Commentarii, would make himself
ridiculous in the eyes of every student of history.
28 GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
tains all its force, even if not only chap, xxxiw, the blessing of
Moses in chap, xxxiii., whose title proves it to be an appendix
to the Thorah, and the song in chap, xxxii., are included in the
supplement added by a different hand, but if the supplement
commences at chap. xxxi. 24, or, as Delitzsch supposes, at chap,
xxxi. 9. For even in the latter case, the precepts of Moses on
the reading of the Thorah at the feast of Tabernacles of the
year of release, and on the preservation of the copy by the side
of the ark, would have been inserted in the original prepared by
Moses himself before it was deposited in the place appointed ;
and the work of Moses would have been concluded, after his
death, with the notice of his death and burial. The supplement
itself was undoubtedly added, not merely by a contemporary,
but by a man who was intimately associated with Moses, and
occupied a prominent position in the Israelitish community, so
that his testimony ranks with that of Moses.
Other objections to the Mosaic authorship we shall notice,
so far as they need any special refutation, in our commentary
upon the passages in question. At the close of our exposition
of the whole five books, we will review the modern hypotheses,
which regard the work as the resultant of frequent revisions.
§ 4. HISTOEICAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES.
Acknowledgment of the historical credibility of the facts
recorded in the books of Moses requires a previous admission of
the reality of a supernatural revelation from God. The wide-
spread naturalism of modern theologians, which deduces the
origin and development of the religious ideas and truths of the
Old Testament from the nature of the human mind, must of
necessity remit all that is said in the Pentateuch about direct or
supernatural manifestations or acts of God, to the region of fic-
titious sagas and myths, and refuse to admit the historical truth
and reality of miracles and prophecies. But such an opinion
must be condemned as neither springing from the truth nor
loading to the truth, on the simple ground that it is directly at
variance with what Christ and Ilis apostles have taught in the
New Testament with reference to the Old, and also as leading
either to an unspiritual Deism or to a comfortless Pantheism,
§ 4. HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES. 29
which ignores the working of God on the one hand, and the
inmost nature of the human mind on the other. Of the reality
of the divine revelations, accompanied by miracles and prophe-
cies, the Christian, i.e. the believing Christian, has already a
pledge in the miracle of regeneration and the working of the
Holy Spirit within his own heart. He who has experienced in
himself this spiritual miracle of divine grace, will also recognise
as historical facts the natural miracles, by which the true and
living God established His kingdom of grace in Israel, wherever
the testimony of eye-witnesses ensures their credibility. Now
we have this testimony in the case of all the events of Moses'
own time, from his call downwards, or rather from his birth till
his death ; that is to say, of all the events which are narrated
in the last four books of Moses. The legal code contained in
these books is now acknowledged by the most naturalistic oppo-
nents of biblical revelation to have proceeded from Moses, so far
as its most essential elements are concerned ; and this is in itself
a simple confession that the Mosaic age is not a dark and mythi-
cal one, but falls within the clear light of history. The events
of such an age might, indeed, by possibility be transmuted into
legends in the course of centuries ; but only in cases where they
had been handed down from generation to generation by simple
word of mouth. Now this cannot apply to the events of the
Mosaic age ; for even the opponents of the Mosaic origin of the
Pentateuch admit, that the art of writing had been learned by
the Israelites from the Egyptians long before that time, and
that not merely separate laws, but also memorable events, were
committed to writing. To this we must add, that the historical
events of the books of Moses contain no traces of legendary
transmutation, or mythical adornment of the actual facts. Cases
of discrepancy, which some critics have adduced as containing
proofs of this, have been pronounced by others of the same theo-
logical school to be quite unfounded. Thus JBertheau says, with
regard to the supposed contradictions in the different laws : " It
always appears to me rash, to assume that there are contradic-
tions in the laws, and to adduce these as evidence that the con-
tradictory passages must belong to different periods. The state
of the case is really this : even if the Pentateuch did gradually
receive the form in which it has come down to us, whoever made
additions must have known what the existing contents were, and
30 GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
would therefore not only admit nothing that was contradictory,
but would erase anything contradictory that might have found
its way in before. The liberty to make additions does not
appear to me to be either greater, or more involved in difficulties,
than that to make particular erasures." And on the supposed
discrepancies in the historical accounts, C. v. Lengerhe himself
says : " The discrepancies which some critics have discovered in
the historical portions of Deuteronomy, as compared with the
earlier books, have really no existence." Throughout, in fact,
the pretended contradictions have for the most part been intro-
duced into the biblical text by the critics themselves, and have
so little to sustain them in the narrative itself, that on closer
research they resolve themselves into mere appearance, and the
differences can for the most part be easily explained. — The result
is just the same in the case of the repetitions of the same historical
events, which have been regarded as legendary reduplications of
things that occurred but once. There are only two miraculous
occurrences mentioned in the Mosaic era which are said to have
been repeated ; only two cases, therefore, in which it is possi-
ble to place the repetition to the account of legendary fiction :
viz. the feeding with quails, and bringing of water from a rock.
But both of these are of such a character that the appearance of
identity vanishes entirely before the distinctness of the historical
accounts, and the differences in the attendant circumstances.
The first feeding with quails took place in the desert of Sin,
before the arrival of the Israelites at Sinai, in the second month
of the first year ; the second occurred after their departure from
Sinai, in the second month of the second year, at the so-called
graves of lust. The latter was sent as a judgment or plague,
which brought the murmurers into the graves of their lust; the
former merely supplied the deficiency of animal food. The
water was brought from the rock the first time in Kephidim,
during the first year of their journey, at a spot which was called
in consequence Massah and Meribah; the second time, at Ka-
desh, in the fortieth year, — and on this occasion Moses and Aaron
sinned so grievously that they were not allowed to enter Canaan.
It is apparently different with the historical contents of the
book of Genesis. If Genesis was written by Moses, even be-
tween the history of the patriarchs and the time of Moses there
is an interval of four or five centuries, in which the tradition
§ 4. HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE BOOKS OF MOSES. 31
might possibly have been corrupted or obscured. But to infer
the reality from the bare possibility would be a very unscientific
proceeding, and at variance with the simplest rules of logic.
Now, if we look at the history which has been handed down to
us in the book of Genesis from the primitive times of the human
race and the patriarchal days of Israel, the traditions from the
primitive times are restricted to a few simple incidents naturally
described, and to genealogies which exhibit the development of
the earliest families, and the origin of the different nations, in the
plainest possible style. These transmitted accounts have such a
genuine historical stamp, that no well-founded question can be
raised concerning their credibility; but, on the contrary, all
thorough historical research into the origin of different nations
only tends to their confirmation. This also applies to the patri-
archal history, in which, with the exception of the divine mani-
festations, nothing whatever occurs that could in the most remote
degree call to mind the myths and fables of the heathen nations,
as to the lives and deeds of their heroes and progenitors. There
are three separate accounts, indeed, in the lives of Abraham and
Isaac of an abduction of their wives ; and modern critics can
see nothing more in these, than three different mythical embel-
lishments of one single event. But on a close and unprejudiced
examination of the three accounts, the attendant circumstances
in all three cases are so peculiar, and correspond so exactly to
the respective positions, that the appearance of a legendary mul-
tiplication vanishes, and all three events must rest upon a good
historical foundation. " As the history of the world, and of the
plan of salvation, abounds not only in repetitions of wonderful
events, but also in wonderful repetitions, critics had need act
modestly, lest in excess of wisdom they become foolish and
ridiculous" (Velitzsch). Again, we find that in the guidance of
the human race, from the earliest ages downwards, more espe-
cially in the lives of the three patriarchs, God prepared the way
by revelations for the covenant which He made at Sinai with the
people of Israel. But in these preparations we can discover no
sign of any legendary and unhistorical transference of later cir-
cumstances and institutions, either Mosaic or post-Mosaic, to the
patriarchal age ; and they are sufficiently justified by the facts
themselves, since the Mosaic economy cannot possibly have been
brought into the world, like a deus ex machina, without the
32 GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
slightest previous preparation. The natural simplicity of the
patriarchal life, which shines out in every narrative, is another
thing that produces on every unprejudiced reader the impression
of a genuine historical tradition. This tradition, therefore, even
though for the most part transmitted from generation to genera-
tion by word of mouth alone, has every title to credibility, since
it was perpetuated within the patriarchal family, " in which,
according to divine command (Gen. xviii. 19), the manifesta-
tions of God in the lives of the fathers were handed down as an
heirloom, and that with all the greater ease, in proportion to the
longevity of the patriarchs, the simplicity of their life, and the
closeness of their seclusion from foreign and discordant influ-
ences. Such a tradition would undoubtedly be guarded with
the greatest care. It was the foundation of the very existence
of the chosen family, the bond of its unity, the mirror of its
duties, the pledge of its future history, and therefore its dearest
inheritance" (Delitzsch). But we are by no means to suppose
that all the accounts and incidents in the book of Genesis were
dependent upon oral tradition ; on the contrary, there is much
which was simply copied from written documents handed down
from the earliest times. Not only the ancient genealogies, which
may be distinguished at once from the historical narratives by
their antique style, with its repetitions of almost stereotyped
formularies, and by the peculiar forms of the names which they
contain, but certain historical sections — such, for example, as
the account of the war in Gen. xiv., with its superabundance of
genuine and exact' accounts of a primitive age, both historical
and geographical, and its old words, which had disappeared from
the living language before the time of Moses, as well as many
others — were unquestionably copied by Moses from ancient docu-
ments. (See HdvernicJc' 's Introduction.)
To all this must be added the fact, that the historical con-
tents, not of Genesis only, but of all the five books of Moses,
are pervaded and sustained by the spirit of true religion. This
spirit has impressed a seal of truth upon the historical writings
of the Old Testament, which distinguishes them from all merely
human historical compositions, and may be recognised in the
fact, that to all who yield themselves up to the influence of the
s Spirit which lives and moves in them, it points the way to the
knowledge of that salvation which God Himself has revealed.
THE FIEST BOOK OF MOSES.
(GENESIS.)
INTRODUCTION.
CONTENTS; DESIGN? AND PLAN OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS.
HE first book of Moses, which has the superscription
rw'STQ in the original, Teveais Koafiov in the Cod.
Alex, of the LXX., and is called liber creationis
by the Rabbins, has received the name of Genesis
from its entire contents. Commencing with the creation of
the heaven and the earth, and concluding with the death of the
patriarchs Jacob and Joseph, this book supplies us with infor-
mation with regard not only to the first beginnings and earlier
stages of the world and of the human race, but also to those of
the divine institutions which laid the foundation for the king-
dom of God. Genesis commences with the creation of the
world, because the heavens and the earth form the appointed
sphere, so far as time and space are concerned, for the kingdom
of God ; because God, according to His eternal counsel, ap-
pointed the world to be the scene both for the revelation of His
invisible essence, and also for the operations of His eternal love
within and among His creatures ; and because in the beginning
He created the world to be and to become the kingdom of God.
The creation of the heaven and the earth, therefore, receives as
its centre, paradise ; and in paradise, man, created in the image
of God, is the head and crown of all created beings. The his-
tory of the world and of the kingdom of God begins with him.
His fall from God brought death and corruption into the whole
creation (Gen. iii. 17 sqq. ; Rom. viii. 19 sqq.); his redemp-
34 INTRODUCTION.
tion from the fall will be completed in and with the glorifi-
cation of the heavens and the earth (Isa. lxv. 17, lxvi. 22 ; 2
Pet. iii. 13 ; Rev. xxi. 1). By sin, men have departed and
separated themselves from God; but God, in His infinite mercy,
has not cut Himself off from men, His creatures. Not only
did He announce redemption along with punishment imme-
diately after the fall, but from that time forward He continued
to reveal Himself to them, that He might draw them back to
Himself, and lead them from the path of destruction to the way
of salvation. And through these operations of God upon the
world in theophanies, or revelations by word and deed, the histo-
rical development of the human race became a history of the
plan of salvation. The book of Genesis narrates that history in
broad, deep, comprehensive sketches, from its first beginning to
the time of the patriarchs, whom God chose from among the
nations of the earth to be the bearers of salvation for the entire
world. This long space of 2300 years (from Adam to the
flood, 1656 ; to the entrance of Abram into Canaan, 365 ; to
Joseph's death, 285 ; in all, 2306 years) is divisible into two
periods. The first period embraces the development of the
human race from its first creation and fall to its dispersion over
the earth, and the division of the one race into many nations,
with different languages (chap. ii. 4-xi. 26) ; and is divided by
the flood into two distinct ages, which we may call the primeval
age and the preparatory age. All that is related of the primeval
age, from Adam to Noah, is the history of the fall ; the mode of
life, and longevity of the two families which descended from the
two sons of Adam ; and the universal spread of sinful corruption
in consequence of the intermarriage of these two families, who
differed so essentially in their relation to God (chap. ii. 4-vi. 8).
The primeval history closes with the flood, in which the old
world perished (chap. vi. 9-viii. 19). Of the preparatory age,
from Noah to Terah the father of Abraham, we have an account
of the covenant which God made with Noah, and of Noah's
blessing and curse ; the genealogies of the families and tribes
which descended from his three sons ; an account of the con-
fusion of tongues, and the dispersion of the people ; and the
genealogical table from Shem to Terah (chap. viii. 20-xi. 26). —
The second period consists of the patriarchal era. From this we
have an elaborate description of the lives of the three patriarchs
CONTENTS, DESIGN, AND PLAN OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS. 35
of Israel, the family chosen to be the people of God, from the
call of Abraham to the death of Joseph (chap. xi. 27-1.). Thus
the history of humanity is gathered up into the history of the
one family, which received the promise, that God would multiply
it into a great people, or rather into a multitude of peoples,
would make it a blessing to all the families of the earth, and
would give it the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession.
This general survey will suffice to bring out the design of
the book of Genesis, viz., to relate the early history of the Old
Testament kingdom of God. By a simple and unvarnished
description of the development of the world under the guidance
and discipline of God, it shows how God, as the preserver and
governor of the world, dealt with the human race which He had
created in His own image, and how, notwithstanding their fall
and through the misery which ensued, He prepared the way
for the -fulfilment of His original design, and the establishment
of the kingdom which should bring salvation to the world.
Whilst by virtue of the blessing bestowed in their creation, the
human race was increasing from a single pair to families and
nations, and peopling the earth; God stemmed the evil, which sin
had introduced, by words and deeds, by the announcement of
His will in commandments, promises, and threats, and by the
infliction of punishments and judgments upon the despisers of
His mercy. Side by side with the law of expansion from the
unity of a family to the plurality of nations, there was carried
on from the very first a law of separation between the ungodly
and those that feared God, for the purpose of preparing and
preserving a holy seed for the rescue and salvation of the whole
human race. This double law is the organic principle which
lies at the root of all the separations, connections, and disposi-
tions which constitute the history of the book of Genesis. In
accordance with the law of reproduction, which prevails in the
preservation and increase of the human race, the genealogies
show the historical bounds within which the persons and events
that marked the various epochs are confined ; whilst the law of
selection determines the arrangement and subdivision of such
historical materials as are employed.
So far as the plan of the book is concerned, the historical
contents are divided into ten groups, with the uniform heading,
" These are the generations" (with the exception of chap. v. 1 :
36 INTRODUCTION.
" This is the book of the generations ") ; the account of the
creation forming the substratum of the whole. These groups
consist of the Tholedoth : 1. of the heavens and the earth (chap,
ii. 4-iv. 26) ; 2. of Adam (v. 1-vi. 8) ; 3. of Noah (vi. 9-ix.
29); 4. of Noah's sons (x. 1-xi. 9); 5. of Shem (xi. 10-26);
6. of Terah (xi. 27-xxv. 11); 7. of Ishmael (xxv. 12-18); 8.
of Isaac (xxv. 19-xxxv. 29) ; 9. of Esau (xxxvi.) ; and 10. of
Jacob (xxxvii.-L). There are five groups in the first period,
and five in the second. Although, therefore, the two periods
differ considerably with regard to their scope and contents, in
their historical importance to the book of Genesis they are upon
a par ; and the number ten stamps upon the entire book, or
rather upon the early history of Israel recorded in the book, the
character of completeness. This arrangement flowed quite
naturally from the contents and purport of the book. The two
periods, of which the early history of the kingdom of God in
Isi'ael consists, evidently constitute two great divisions, so far as
their internal character is concerned. All that is related of
the first period, from Adam to Terah, is obviously connected, no
doubt, with the establishment of the kingdom of God in Israel,
but only in a remote degree. The account of paradise exhibits
the primary relation of man to God and his position in the
world. In the fall, the necessity is shown for the interposition
of God to rescue the fallen. In the promise which followed the
curse of transgression, the first glimpse of redemption is seen.
The division of the descendants of Adam into a God-fearing and
an ungodly race exhibits the relation of the whole human race
to God. The flood prefigures the judgment of God upon the
ungodly; and the preservation and blessing of Noah, the pro-
tection of the godly from destruction. And lastly, in the
genealogy and division of the different nations on the one hand,
and the genealogical table of Shem on the other, the selection of
one nation is anticipated to be the recipient and custodian of
the divine revelation. The special preparations for the training
of this nation commence with the call of Abraham, and consist
of the care bestowed upon Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their
posterity, and of the promises which they received. The leading
events in the first period, and the prominent individuals in the
second, also furnished, in a simple and natural way, the requisite
points of view for grouping the historical materials of each under
THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES I. 1-IL 3. 37
a fivefold division. The proof of this will be found in the ex-
position. Within the different groups themselves the arrange-
ment adopted is this : the materials are arranged and distri-
buted according to the law of divine selection ; the families
which branched off from the main line are noticed first of all ;
and when they have been removed from the general scope of
the history, the course of the main line is more elaborately de-
scribed, and the history itself is carried forward. According, to
this plan, which is strictly adhered to, the history of Cain and
his family precedes that of Seth and his posterity ; the gene-
alogy of Japhet and Ham stands before that of Shem ; the
history of Ishmael and Esau, before that of Isaac and Jacob ;
and the death of Terah, before the call and migration of Abra-
ham to Canaan. In this regularity of composition, according to
a settled plan, the book of Genesis may clearly be seen to be
the careful production of one single author, who looked at the
historical development of the human race in the light of divine
revelation, and thus exhibited it as a complete and well arranged
introduction to the history of the Old Testament kingdom of
God.
THE CREATION OF THE WORLD.
CHAP. I. l— II. 3.
The account of the creation, its commencement, progress,
and completion, bears the marks, both in form and substance,
of a historical document in which it is intended that we should
accept as actual truth, not only the assertion that God created
the heavens, and the earth, and all that lives and moves in the
world, but also the description of the creation itself in all its
several stages. If we look merely at the form of this document,
its place at the beginning of the book of Genesis is sufficient to
warrant the expectation that it will give us history, and not
fiction, or human speculation. As the development of the
human family has been from the first a historical fact, and as
man really occupies that place in the world which this record
assigns him, the creation of man, as well as that of the earth on
38 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
which, and the heaven for which, lie is to live, must also be a
work of God, i.e. a fact of objective truth and reality. The
grand simplicity of the account is in perfect harmony with the
fact. " The whole narrative is sober, definite, clear, and con-
crete. The historical events described contain a rich treasury
of speculative thoughts and poetical glory ; but they themselves
are free from the influence of human invention and human
philosophizing" (JDelitzsch). This is also true of the arrange-
ment of the whole. The work of creation does not fall, as
Herder and others maintain, into two triads of days, with the
work of the second answering to that of the first. For although
the creation of the light on the first day seems to correspond to
that of the light-bearing stars on the fourth, there is no reality
in the parallelism which some discover between the second and
third days on the one hand, and the third and fourth on the
other. On the second day the firmament or atmosphere is
formed ; on the fifth, the fish and fowl. On the third, after the
sea and land are separated, the plants are formed ; on the sixth,
the animals of the dry land and man. Now, if the creation of
the fowls which fill the air answers to that of the firmament,
the formation of the fish as the inhabitants of the waters ought
to be assigned to the sixth day, and not to the fifth, as being
parallel to the creation of the seas. The creation of the fish
and fowl on the same day is an evident proof that a parallelism
between the first three days of creation and the last three is not
intended, and does not exist. Moreover, if the division of the
work of creation into so many days had been the result of
human reflection ; the creation of man, who was appointed lord
of the earth, would certainly not have been assigned to the same
day as that of the beasts and reptiles, but would have been kept
distinct from the creation of the beasts, and allotted to the seventh
day, in which the creation was completed, — a meaning which
Richers and Keerl have actually tried to force upon the text of
the Bible. In the different acts of creation we perceive indeed
an evident progress from the general to the particular, from the
lower to the higher orders of creatures, or rather a steady advance
towards more and more concrete forms. But on the fourth day
this progress is interrupted in a way which we cannot explain.
In the transition from the creation of the plants to that of sun,
moon, ami stars, it is impossible to discover either a " well-
CHAP. I. l-II 3. 39
arranged and constant progress," or " a genetic advance," since
the stars are not intermediate links between plants and animals,
and, in fact, have no place at all in the scale of earthly creatures.
— If we pass on to the contents of our account of the creation,
they differ as widely from all other cosmogonies as truth from
fiction. Those of heathen nations are either hylozoistical, de-
ducing the origin of life and living beings from some primeval
matter ; or pantheistical, regarding the whole world as emanating
from a common divine substance ; or mythological, tracing both
gods and men to a chaos or world-egg. They do not even rise
to the notion of a creation, much less to the knowledge of an
almighty God, as the Creator of all things.1 Even in the
Etruscan and Persian myths, which correspond so remarkably
to the biblical account that they must have been derived from it,
the successive acts of creation are arranged according to the
suggestions of human probability and adaptation.2 In contrast
1 According to Berosus and Syncellus, the Chaldean myth represents the
"All" as consisting of darkness and water, filled with monstrous creatures,
and ruled by a woman, Markaya, or ' O^opuxa. (? Ocean). Bel divided the
darkness, and cut the woman into two halves, of which he formed the
heaven and the earth ; he then cut off his own head, and from the drops of
blood men were formed. — According to the Phoenician myth of Sanchu-
niathon, the beginning of the All was a movement of dark air, and a dark,
turbid chaos. By the union of the spirit with the All, Mor, i.e. slime, was
formed, from which every seed of creation and the universe was deve-
loped ; and the heavens were made in the form of an egg, from which the
sun and moon, the stars and constellations, sprang. By the heating of the
earth and sea there arose winds, clouds and rain, lightning and thunder,
the roaring of which wakened up sensitive beings, so that living creatures
of both sexes moved in the waters and upon the earth. In another passage
Sanchuniathon represents KoXx-ict (probably rp£) bip, the moaning of the
wind) and his wife Bxxv (hohu) as producing Kluv and n-puToyovos, two
mortal men, from whom sprang Tho; and Tsvsx, the inhabitants of Phoe-
nicia.— It is well known from Hesiod's iheogony how the Grecian myth
represents the gods as coming into existence at the same time as the world.
The numerous inventions of the Indians, again, all agree in this, that they
picture the origin of the world as an emanation from the absolute, through
Brahma's thinking, or through the contemplation of a primeval being called
Tad (it). — Buddhism also acknowledges no God as creator of the world,
teaches no creation, but simply describes the origin of the world and the
beings that inhabit it as the necessary consequence of former acts performed
by these beings themselves.
2 According to the Etruscan saga, which Suidas quotes from a his-
torian, who was a " izxp xvroJg (the Tyrrhenians) 'ipz-sipo; dv/ip (therefore
40 , THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
with all these mythical inventions, the biblical account shines out
in the clear light of truth, and proves itself by its contents to be
an integral part of the revealed history, of which it is accepted
as the pedestal throughout the whole of the sacred Scriptures.
This is not the case with the Old Testament only ; but in the
New Testament also it is accepted and taught by Christ and the
apostles as the basis of the divine revelation. To select only a
few from the many passages of the Old and New Testaments,
in which God is referred to as the Creator of the heavens and
the earth, and the almighty operations of the living God in the
world are based upon the fact of its creation : in Ex. xx. 9-1 J,
xxxi. 12-17, the command to keep the Sabbath is founded upon
the fact that God rested on the seventh day, when the work of
creation was complete ; and in Ps. viii. and civ., the creation is
depicted as a work of divine omnipotence in close adherence to
the narrative before us. From the creation of man, as described
in Gen. i. 27 and ii. 24, Christ demonstrates the indissoluble
character of marriage as a divine ordinance (Matt. xix. 4-6) ;
Peter speaks of the earth as standing out of the water and in
the water by the word of God (2 Pet. iii. 5) ; and the author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews, " starting from Gen. ii. 2, describes
it as the motive principle of all history, that the Sabbath of God
is to become the Sabbath of the creature'' (Delitzsch).
The biblical account of the creation can also vindicate its
claim to be true and actual history, in the presence of the
doctrines of philosophy and the established results of natural
science. So long, indeed, as philosophy undertakes to construct
the universe from general ideas, it will be utterly unable to
comprehend the creation ; but ideas will never explain the exist-
not a native)," God created the world in six periods of one thousand years
each : in the first, the heavens and the earth ; in the second, the firmament;
in the third, the sea and other -waters of the earth; in the fourth, sun, moon,
and stars ; in the fifth, the beasts of the air, the water, and the land ; in
the sixth, men. The world will last twelve thousand years, the" human race
six thousand. — According to the saga of the Zend in Avesta, the supreme
Being Ormuzd created the visible world by his word in six periods or thou-
sands of years : (1) the heaven, with the stars ; (2) the water on the earth,
with the clouds ; (3) the earth, with the mountain Alborj and the other
mountains ; (4) the trees ; (5) the beasts, which sprang from the primeval
beast; (6) men, the first of whom was Kajomorts. Every one of these
separate creations is celebrated by a festival. The world will last twelve
thousand years.
CHAP. I. 1— II. 3. 41
ence of things. Creation is an act of the personal God, not a
process of nature, the development of which can be traced to
the laws of birth and decay that prevail in the created world.
But the work of God, as described in the history of creation, is
in perfect harmony with the correct notions of divine omnipo-
tence, wisdom, and goodness. The assertion, so frequently made,
that the course of the creation takes its form from the Hebrew
week, which was already in existence, and the idea of God's rest-
ing on the seventh day, from the institution of the Hebrew Sab-
bath, is entirely without foundation. There is no allusion in
Gen. ii. 2, 3 to the Sabbath of the Israelites ; and the week of
seven days is older than the Sabbath of the Jewish covenant.
Natural research, again, will never explain the origin of the
universe, or even of the earth ; for the creation lies beyond the
limits of the territory within its reach. By all modest natural-
ists, therefore, it is assumed that the origin of matter, or of the
original material of the world, was due to an act of divine crea-
tion. But there is no firm ground for the conclusion which they
draw, on the basis of this assumption, with regard to the forma-
tion or development of the world from its first chaotic condition
into a fit abode for man. All the theories which have been
adopted, from Descartes to the present day, are not the simple
and well-established inductions of natural science founded upon
careful observation, but combinations of partial discoveries em-
pirically made, with speculative ideas of very questionable worth.
The periods of creation, which modern geology maintains with
such confidence, that not a few theologians have accepted them
as undoubted and sought to bring them into harmony with the
scriptural account of the creation, if not to deduce them from
the Bible itself, are inferences partly from the successive strata
which compose the crust of the earth, and partly from the
various fossil remains of plants and animals to be found in
those strata. The former are regarded as proofs of successive
formation; and from the difference between the plants and
animals found in a fossil state and those in existence now, the
conclusion is drawn, that their creation must have preceded the
present formation, which either accompanied or was closed by
the advent of man. But it is not difficult to see that the former
of these conclusions could only be regarded as fully established,
if the process by which the different strata were formed were
PENT. — VOL. I. D
42 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
clearly and fully known, or if the different formations were
always found lying in the same order, and could be readily dis-
tinguished from one another. But with regard to the origin of
the different species of rock, geologists, as is well known, are
divided into two contending schools : the Neptunists, who attri-
bute all the mountain formations to deposit in water ; and the
Plutonists, who trace all the non-fossiliferous rocks to the action
of heat. According to the Neptunists, the crystalline rocks are
the earliest or primary formations ; according to the Plutonists,
the gi'anite burst through the transition and stratified rocks, and
were driven up from within the earth, so that they are of later
date. But neither theory is sufficient to account in this mecha-
nical way for all the phenomena connected with the relative
position of the rocks ; consequently, a third theory, which sup-
poses the rocks to be the result of chemical processes, is steadily
gaining ground. Now if the rocks, both crystalline and strati-
fied, were formed, not in any mechanical way, but by chemical
processes, in which, besides fire and water, electricity, galvanism,
magnetism, and possibly other forces at present unknown to
physical science were at work ; the different formations may
have been produced contemporaneously and laid one upon
another. Till natural science has advanced beyond mere opi-
nion and conjecture, with regard to the mode in which the rocks
were formed and their positions determined ; there can be no
ground for assuming that conclusions drawn from the successive
order of the various strata, with regard to the periods of their
formation, must of necessity be true. This is the more apparent,
when we consider, on the one hand, that even the principal for-
mations (the primary, transitional, stratified, and tertiary), not to
mention the subdivisions of which each of these is composed, do
not always occur in the order laid down in the system, but in
not a few instances the order is reversed, crystalline primary
rocks lying upon transitional, stratified, and tertiary formations
(granite, syenite, gneiss, etc., above both Jura-limestone and
chalk) ; and, on the other hand, that not only do the different
leading formations and their various subdivisions frequently
shade off into one another so imperceptibly, that no boundary
line can be drawn between them and the species distinguished
by oryctognosis are not sharply and clearly defined in nature,
but that, instead of surrounding the entire globe, they are all
CHAP. I. 1— II. 3. 43
met with in certain localities only, whilst whole series of inter-
mediate links are frequently missing, the tertiary formations
especially being universally admitted to be only partial. — The
second of these conclusions also stands or falls with the assump-
tions on which they are founded, viz. with the three proposi-
tions : (1) that each of the fossiliferous formations contains an
order of plants and animals peculiar to itself; (2) that these are
so totally different from the existing plants and animals, that
the latter could not have sprung from them ; (3) that no fossil
remains of man exist of the same antiquity as the fossil remains
of animals. Not one of these can be regarded as an established
truth, or as the unanimously accepted result of geognosis. The
assertion so often made as an established fact, that the transition
rocks contain none but fossils of the lower orders of plants and
animals, that mammalia are first met with in the Trias, Jura,
and chalk formations, and warm-blooded animals in the tertiary
rocks, has not been confirmed by continued geognostic re-
searches, but is more and more regarded as untenable. Even
the frequently expressed opinion, that in the different forms of
plants and animals of the successive rocks there is a gradual and
to a certain extent progressive development of the animal and
vegetable world, has not commanded universal acceptance.
Numerous instances are known, in which the remains of one
and the same species occur not only in two, but in several suc-
cessive formations, and there are some types that occur in nearly
all. And the widely spread notion, that the fossil types are alto-
gether different from the existing families of plants and animals,
is one of the unscientific exaggerations of actual facts. All the
fossil plants and animals can be arranged in the orders and
classes of the existing flora and fauna. Even with regard to the
genera there is no essential difference, although many of the
existing types are far inferior in size to the forms of the old
world. It is only the species that can be shown to differ, either
entirely or in the vast majority of cases, from species in exist-
ence now. But even if all the species differed, which can by
no means be proved, this would be no valid evidence that the
existing plants and animals had not sprung from those that
have passed away, so long as natural science is unable to obtain
any clear insight into the origin and formation of species, and
the question as to the extinction of a species or its transition into
44 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
another has met with no satisfactory solution. Lastly, even now
the occurrence of fossil human bones among those of animals
that perished at least before the historic age, can no longer
be disputed, although Central Asia, the cradle of the human
race, has not yet been thoroughly explored by palaeontologists.
— If then the premises from which the geological periods have
been deduced are of such a nature that not one of them is
firmly established, the different theories as to the formation
of the earth also rest upon two questionable assumptions, viz.
(1) that the immediate working of God in the creation was re-
stricted to the production of the chaotic matter, and that the
formation of this primary matter into a world peopled by in-
numerable organisms and living beings proceeded according to
the laws of nature, which have been discovered by science as in
force in the existing world ; and (2) that all the changes, which
the world and its inhabitants have undergone since the creation
was finished, may be measured by the standard of changes ob-
served in modern times, and still occurring from time to time.
But the Bible actually mentions two events of the primeval age,
whose effect upon the form of the earth and the animal and
vegetable world no natural science can explain. We refer to
the curse pronounced upon the earth in consequence of the fall
of the progenitors of our race, by which even the animal world
was made subject to <f>9opd (Gen. iii. 17, and Rom. viii. 20);
and the flood, by which the earth was submerged even to the
tops of the highest mountains, and all the living beings on the
dry land perished, with the exception of those preserved by
Noah in the ark. Hence, even if geological doctrines do con-
tradict the account of the creation contained in Genesis, they
cannot shake the credibility of the Scriptures.
But if the biblical account of the creation has full claim to
be regarded as historical truth, the question arises, whence it
was obtained. The opinion that the Israelites drew it from
the cosmogony of this or the other ancient people, and altered
it according to their own religious ideas, will need no further
refutation, after what we have said respecting the cosmogonies
of other nations. Whence then did Israel obtain a pure know-
ledge of God, such as we cannot find in any heathen nation, or
in the most celebrated of the wise men of antiquity, if not from
divine revelation ? This is the source from which the biblical
CHAP. I. 1— II. 3. 45
account of the creation springs. God revealed it to men, — not
first to Moses or Abraham, but undoubtedly to the first men,
since without this revelation they could not have understood
either their relation to God or their true position in the world.
The account contained in Genesis does not lie, as Hofmann
says, " within that sphere which was open to man through his
historical nature, so that it may be regarded as the utterance of
the knowledge possessed by the first man of things which pre-
ceded his own existence, and which he might possess, without
needing any special revelation, if only the present condition of
the world lay clear and transparent before him." By simple
intuition the first man might discern what nature had effected,
viz. the existing condition of the world, and possibly also its
causality, but not the fact that it was created in six days, or the
successive acts of creation, and the sanctification of the seventh
day. Our record contains not merely religious truth transformed
into history, but the true and actual history of a work of God,
which preceded the existence of man, and to which he owes his
existence. Of this work he could only have obtained his know-
ledge through divine revelation, by the direct instruction of
God. Nor could he have obtained it by means of a vision.
The seven days' works are not so many " prophetico-historical
tableaux," which were spread before the mental eye of the seer,
whether of the historian or the first man. The account before
us does not contain the slightest marks of a vision, is no picture
of creation, in which every line betrays the pencil of a painter
rather than the pen of a historian, but is obviously a historical
narrative, which we could no more transform into a vision than
the account of paradise or of the fall. As God revealed Him-
self to the first man not in visions, but by coming to him in a
visible form, teaching him His will, and then after his fall
announcing the punishment (ii. 16, 17, iii. 9 sqq.) ; as He
talked with Moses "face to face, as a man with his friend,"
" mouth to mouth," not in vision or dream : so does the written
account of the Old Testament revelation commence, not with
visions, but with actual history. The manner in which God
instructed the first men with reference to the creation must be
judged according to the intercourse carried on by Him, as
Creator and Father, with these His creatures and children.
"What God revealed to them upon this subject, they transmitted
46 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
to their children and descendants, together with everything of
significance and worth that they had experienced and dis-
covered for themselves. This tradition was kept in faithful
remembrance by the family of the godly ; and even in the con-
fusion of tongues it was not changed in its substance, but
simply transferred into the new form of the language spoken by
the Semitic tribes, and thus handed down from generation to
generation along with the knowledge and worship of the true
God, until it became through Abraham the spiritual inheritance
of the chosen race. Nothing certain can be decided as to the
period when it was committed to writing ; probably some time
before Moses, who inserted it as a written record in the Thorah
of Israel.
Chap. i.l. " In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth." — Heaven and earth have not existed from all eternity,
but had a beginning ; nor did they arise by emanation from an
absolute substance, but were credited by God. This sentence,
which stands at the head of the records of revelation, is not a
mere heading, nor a summary of the history of the creation, but
a declaration of the primeval act of God, by which the universe
was called into being. That this verse is not a heading merely,
is evident from the fact that the following account of the course
of the creation commences with 1 (and), which connects the
different acts of creation with the fact expressed in ver. 1, as
the primary foundation upon which they rest, IW'xna (in the
beginning) is used absolutely, like iv apxf) in John i. 1, and
0^x70 in Isa. xlvi. 10. The following clause cannot be treated
as subordinate, either by rendering it, " in the beginning when
God created . . , the earth was," etc., or "in the beginning
when God created . . (but the earth was then a chaos, etc.),
God said, Let there be light " (Ewald and Bunsen). The first is
opposed to the grammar of the language, which would require
ver. 2 to commence with pxn ''iini ; the second to the simplicity
of style which pervades the whole chapter, and to which so
involved a sentence would be intolerable, apart altogether from
the fact that this construction is invented for the simple purpose
of getting rid of the doctrine of a creatio ex nihilo, which is so
repulsive to modern Pantheism. flVNT in itself is a relative
notion, indicating the commencement of a series of things or
events ; but here the context gives it the meaning of the very
CHAP. I. 1. 47
first beginning, the commencement of the world, when time
itself began. The statement, that in the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth, not only precludes the idea of the
eternity of the world a parte ante, but shows that the creation of
the heaven and the earth was the actual beginning of all things.
The verb &02, indeed, to judge from its use in Josh. xvii. 15,
18, where it occurs in the Piel (to hew out), means literally " to
cut, or hew," but in Kal it always means to create, and is only
applied to a divine creation, the production of that which had
no existence before. It is never joined with an accusative of
the material, although it does not exclude a pre-existent material
unconditionally, but is used for the creation of man (ver. 27,
ch. v. 1, 2), and of everything new that God creates, whether
in the kingdom of nature (Num. xvi. 30) or of that of grace
(Ex. xxxiv. 10 ; Ps. li. 10, etc.). In this verse, however, the
existence of any primeval material is precluded by the object
created : " the heaven and the earth." This expression is fre-
quently employed to denote the world, or universe, for which
there was no single word in the Hebrew language ; the universe
consisting of a twofold whole, and the distinction between
heaven and earth being essentially connected with the notion of
the world, the fundamental condition of its historical develop-
ment (vid. ch. xiv. 19, 22; Ex. xxxi. 17). In the earthly
creation this division is repeated in the distinction between spirit
and nature ; and in man, as the microcosm, in that between
spirit and body. Through sin this distinction was changed into
an actual opposition between heaven and earth, flesh and spirit ;
but with the complete removal of sin, this opposition will cease
again, though the distinction between heaven and earth, spirit
and body, will remain, in such a way, however, that the earthly
and corporeal will be completely pervaded by the heavenly and
spiritual, the new Jerusalem coining down from heaven to earth,
and the earthly body being transfigured into a spiritual body
(Rev. xxi. 1, 2 ; 1 Cor. xv. 35 sqq.). Hence, if in the begin-
ning God created the heaven and the earth, " there is nothing
belonging to the composition of the universe, either in material
or form, which had an existence out of God prior to this divine
act in the beginning" (Delitzsch). This is also shown in the
connection between our verse and the one which follows : " and
the earth was without form and void" not before, but when, or
48 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
after God created it. From this it is evident that the void and
formless state of the earth was not uncreated, or without be-
ginning. At the same time it is obvious from the creative acts
which follow (vers. 3-18), that the heaven and earth, as God
created them in the beginning, were not the well-ordered uni-
verse, but the world in its elementary form ; just as Euripides
applies the expression ovpavbs /cat <yala to the undivided mass
(fiopcpr) jxia), which was afterwards formed into heaven and
earth.
Vers. 2-5. The First Day. — Though treating of the crea-
tion of the heaven and the earth, the writer, both here and in
what follows, describes with minuteness the original condition
and progressive formation of the earth alone, and says nothing
more respecting the heaven than is actually requisite in order to
show its connection with the earth. He is writing for inhabitants
of the earth, and for religious ends ; not to gratify curiosity,
but to strengthen faith in God, the Creator of the universe.
What is said in ver. 2 of the chaotic condition of the earth, is
equally applicable to the heaven, " for the heaven proceeds from
the same chaos as the earth." — " And the earth was (not became)
waste and void.'' The alliterative nouns tohu vabohu, the ety-
mology of which is lost, signify waste and empty (barren), but
not laying waste and desolating. Whenever they are used
together in other places (Isa. xxxiv. 11 ; Jer. iv. 23), they are
taken from this passage ; but tohu alone is frequently employed
as synonymous with P.*?? non-existence, and ?2T\} nothingness
(Isa. xl. 17, 23, xlix. 4). The coming earth was at first waste
and desolate, a formless, lifeless mass, rudis indigestaque moles,
v\r) afAopfyos (Wisdom xi. 17) or p^ao?. — " And darkness ivas
upon the face of the deep." Dinri, from Din, to roar, to rage,
denotes the raging waters, the roaring waves (Ps. xlii. 7) or
flood (Ex. xv. 5 ; Deut. viii. 7) ; and hence the depths of the
sea (Job xxviii. 14, xxxviii. 16), and even the abyss of the
earth (Ps. lxxi. 20). As an old traditional word, it is construed
like a proper name without an article (Eivald, Gramm.). The
chaotic mass in which the earth and the firmament were still
undistinguished, unformed, and as it were unborn, was a heav-
ing deep, an abyss of waters (a/3v<T(ro<;, LXX.), and this deep
was wrapped in darkness. But it was in process of formation,
CHAP. I. 2-5. 49
for the Spirit of God moved upon the waters, nn (breath) de-
notes wind and spirit, like irvev^ia from irvew. JRuach Elolrim is
not a breath of wind caused by God (Theodoret, etc.), for the verb
does not suit this meaning, but the creative Spirit of God, the
principle of all life (Ps. xxxiii. 6, civ. 30), which worked upon
the formless, lifeless mass, separating, quickening, and preparing
the living forms, which were called into being by the creative
words that followed. *|m in the Piel is applied to the hovering
and brooding of a bird over its young, to warm them, and develop
their vital powers (Deut. xxxii. 11). In such a way as this the
Spirit of God moved upon the deep, which had received at its
creation the germs of all life, to fill them with vital energy by
His breath of life. The three statements in our verse are
parallel ; the substantive and participial construction of the second
and third clauses rests upon the nriTn of the first. All three
describe the condition of the earth immediately after the creation
of the universe. This suffices to prove that the theosophic specu-
lation of those who " make a gap between the first two verses,
and fill it with a wild horde of evil spirits and their demoniacal
works, is an arbitrary interpolation" (Ziegler). — Ver. 3. The
word of God then went forth to the primary material of the
world, now filled with creative powers of vitality, to call into
being, out of the germs of organization and life which it con-
tained, and in the order pre-ordained by His wisdom, those crea-
tures of the world, which proclaim, as they live and move, the
glory of their Creator (Ps. viii.). The work of creation commences
with the words, " and God said." The words which God speaks
are existing things. " He speaks, and it is done ; He commands,
and it stands fast." These words are deeds of the essential Word,
the A.0709, by which " all things were made." Speaking is the
revelation of thought ; the creation, the realization of the thoughts
of God, a freely accomplished act of the absolute Spirit, and not
an emanation of creatures from the divine essence. The first
thing created by the divine Word was " light" the elementary
light, or light-material, in distinction from the " lights" or light-
bearers, bodies of light, as the sun, moon, and stars, created
on the fourth day, are called. It is now a generally accepted
truth of natural science, that the light does not spring from the
sun and stars, but that the sun itself is a dark body, and the
light proceeds from an atmosphere which surrounds it. Light
50 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
was the first thing called forth, and separated from the dark
chaos by the creative mandate, " Let there be," — the first radiation
of the life breathed into it by the Spirit of God, inasmuch as it
is the fundamental condition of all organic life in the world, and
without light and the warmth which flows from it no plant or
animal could thrive. The expression in ver. 4, " God saw the
light that it teas good," for " God saw that the light was good,"
according to a frequently recurring antiptosis (cf. ch. vi. 2, xii.
14, xiii. 10), is not an anthropomorphism at variance with enlight-
ened thoughts of God ; for man's seeing has its type in God's,
and God's seeing is not a mere expression of the delight of the
eye or of pleasure in His work, but is of the deepest significance
to every created thing, being the seal of the perfection which
God has impressed upon it, and by which its continuance before
God and through God is determined. The creation of light,
however, was no annihilation of darkness, no transformation
of the dark material of the world into pure light, but a separa-
tion of the light from the primary matter, a separation which
established and determined that interchange of light and dark-
ness, which produces the distinction between day and night.
Hence it is said in ver. 5, " God called the light Day, and the
da7'hxess Night;" for, as Augustine observes, " all light is not
day, nor all darkness night ; but light and darkness alternating
in a regular order constitute day and night." None but super-
ficial thinkers can take offence at the idea of created things
receiving names from God. The name of a thing is the expres-
sion of its nature. If the name be given by man, it fixes in a word
the impression which it makes upon the human mind ; but when
given by God, it expresses the reality, what the thing is in God's
creation, and the place assigned it there by the side of other
things. — " Thus evening was and morning xcas one day." ins
{one), like eh and units, is used at the commencement of a
numerical series for the ordinal primus (cf. ch. ii. 11, iv. 19, viii.
5, 15). Like the numbers of the days which follow, it is without
the article, to show that the different days arose from the con-
stant recurrence of evening and morning. It is not till the sixth
and last day that the article is employed (ver. 31), to indicate
the termination of the work of creation upon that day. It is to
be observed, that the days of creation are bounded by the coming
of evening and morning. The first day did not consist of the
CHAP. I. 2 5. 51
primeval darkness and the origination of light, but was formed
after the creation of the light by the first interchange of even-
ing and morning. The first evening was not the gloom, which
possibly preceded the full burst of light as it came forth from
the primary darkness, and intervened between the darkness
and full, broad daylight. It was not till after the light had been
created, and the separation of the light from the darkness had
taken place, that evening came, and after the evening the morn-
ing ; and this coming of evening (lit. the obscure) and morning
(the breaking) formed one, or the first day. It follows from
this, that the days of creation are not reckoned from evening to
evening, but from morning to morning. The first day does not
fully terminate till the light returns after the darkness of night ;
it is not till the break of the new morning that the first inter-
change of light and darkness is completed, and a ^[JuepovvKTiov
has passed. The rendering, " out of evening and morning there
came one day," is at variance with grammar, as well as with the
actual fact. With grammar, because such a thought would
require 1HN Di"? ; and with fact, because the time from evening
to morning does not constitute a day, but the close of a day.
The first day commenced at the moment when God caused the
light to break forth from the darkness ; but this light did not
become a day, until the evening had come, and the darkness
which set in with the evening had given place the next morn-
ing to the break of day. Again, neither the words TV) my TVl
"\p2, nor the expression npa my, evening-morning (= day), in
Dan. viii. 14, corresponds to the Greek vv^ijiiepov, for morn-
ing is not equivalent to day, nor evening to night. The reckon-
ing of days from evening to evening in the Mosaic law (Lev.
xxiii. 32), and by many ancient tribes (the pre-Mohammedan
Arabs, the Athenians, Gauls, and Germans), arose not from the
days of creation, but from the custom of regulating seasons by
the changes of the moon. But if the days of creation are regu-
lated by the recurring interchange of light and darkness, they
must be regarded not as periods of time of incalculable dura-
tion, of years or thousands of years, but as simple earthly days.
It is true the morning and evening of the first three days were
not produced by the rising and setting of the sun, since the sun
was not yet created ; but the constantly recurring interchange
of light and darkness, which produced day and night upon the
52 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
earth, cannot for a moment be understood as denoting that the
light called forth from the darkness of chaos returned to that
darkness again, and thus periodically burst forth and disap-
peared. The only way in which we can represent it to our-
selves, is by supposing that the light called forth by the creative
mandate, " Let there be," was separated from the dark mass of
the earth, and concentrated outside or above the globe, so that
the interchange of light and darkness took place as soon as the
dark chaotic mass began to rotate, and to assume in the process
of creation the form of a spherical body. The time occupied in
the first rotations of the earth upon its axis cannot, indeed, be
measured by our hour-glass ; but even if they were slower at
first, and did not attain their present velocity till the completion
of our solar system, this would make no essential difference
between the first three days and the last three, which were regu-
lated by the rising and setting of the sun.1
Vers. 6-8. The Second Day. — When the light had been
separated from the darkness, and day and night had been
created, there followed upon a second fiat of the Creator, the
division of the chaotic mass of waters through the formation of
the firmament, which was placed as a wall of separation (^M?)
in the midst of the waters, and divided them into upper and
lower waters. V^l, from V\>~\ to stretch, spread out, then beat or
tread out, means expansnm, the spreading out of the air, which
surrounds the earth as an atmosphere. According to optical
appearance, it is described as a carpet spread out above the
earth (Ps. civ. 2), a curtain (Isa. xl. 22), a transparent work of
sapphire (Ex. xxiv. 10), or a molten looking-glass (Job xxxvii.
18) ; but there is nothing in these poetical similes to warrant the
1 Exegesis must insist upon this, and not allow itself to alter the plain
sense of the words of the Bible, from irrelevant and untimely regard to the
so-called certain inductions of natural science. Irrelevant we call such
considerations, as make interpretation dependent upon natural science,
because the creation lies outside the limits of empirical and speculative re-
search, and, as an act of the omnipotent God, belongs rather to the sphere of
miracles and mysteries, which can only be received by faith (Heb. xi. 3) ;
and untimely, because natural science has supplied no certain conclusions
as to the origin of the earth, and geology especially, even at the present
time, is in a chaotic state of fermentation, the issue of which it is impos-
sible to foresee.
CHAP. I. 6-8. 53
idea that the heavens were regarded as a solid mass, a aiSijpeov,
or xaX/ceov or ttoXv^oXkov, such as Greek poets describe. The
TT\ (rendered Veste by Luther, after the (rrepewixa of the LXX.
and firmamentum of the Vulgate) is called heaven in ver. 8, i.e.
the vault of heaven, which stretches out above the earth. The
waters under the firmament are the waters upon the globe itself ;
those above are not ethereal waters1 beyond the limits of the
1 There is no proof of the existence of such " ethereal waters" to be found
in such passages as Rev. iv. 6, xv. 2, xxii. 1 ; for what the holy seer there
beholds before the throne as "a sea of glass like unto crystal mingled with
fire," and " a river of living water, clear as crystal," flowing from the throne
of God into the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem, are wide as the poles from
any fluid or material substance from which the stars were made upon the
fourth day. Of such a fluid the Scriptures know quite as little, as of the nebu -
lar theory of La Place, which, notwithstanding the bright spots in Mars and
the inferior density of Jupiter, Saturn, and other planets, is still enveloped
in a mist which no astronomy will ever disperse. If the waters above the fir-
mament were the elementary matter of which the stars were made, the waters
beneath must be the elementary matter of which the earth was formed ; for
the waters were one and the same before the creation of the firmament.
But the earth was not formed from the waters beneath ; on the contrary,
these waters were merely spread upon the earth and then gathered together
into one place, and this place is called Sea. The earth, which appeared as
dry land after the accumulation of the waters in the sea, was created in the
beginning along with the heavens ; but until the separation of land and
water on the third day, it was so completely enveloped in water, that nothing-
could be seen but " the deep," or " the waters" (ver. 2). If, therefore, in
the course of the work of creation, the heaven with its stars, and the earth
with its vegetation and living creatures, came forth from this deep, or, to
speak more correctly, if they appeared as well-ordered, and in a certain
sense as finished worlds ; it would be a complete misunderstanding of the
account of the creation to suppose it to teach, that the water formed the
elementary matter, out of which the heaven and the earth were made with
all their hosts. Had this been the meaning of the writer, he would have
mentioned water as the first creation, and not the heaven and the earth.
How irreconcilable the idea of the waters above the firmament being
ethereal waters is with the biblical representation of the opening of the
windows of heaven when it rains, is evident from the way in which Keerl,
the latest supporter of this theory, sets aside this difficulty, viz. by the bold
assertion, that the mass of water which came through the windows of
heaven at the flood was different from the rain which falls from the clouds ;
in direct opposition to the text of the Scriptures, which speaks of it not
merely as rain (vii. 12), but as the water of the clouds. Vid. ch. ix. 12 sqq.,
where it is said that when God brings a cloud over the earth, He will set
the rainbow in the cloud, as a sign that the water (of the clouds collected
above the earth) shall not become a flood to destroy the earth again.
51 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
terrestrial atmosphere, but the waters which float in the at-
mosphere, and are separated by it from those upon the earth,
the waters which accumulate in clouds, and then bursting these
their bottles, pour down as rain upon the earth. For, accord-
ing to the Old Testament representation, whenever it rains
heavily, the doors or windows of heaven are opened (ch. vii.
11, 12; Ps. lxxviii. 23, cf. 2 Kings vii. 2, 19 ; Isa. xxiv. 18).
It is in (or with) the upper waters that God layeth the beams
of His chambers, from which He watereth the hills (Ps. civ. 3,
13), and the clouds are His tabernacle (Job xxxvi. 29). If,
therefore, according to this conception, looking from an earthly
point of view, the mass of water which flows upon the earth in
showers of rain is shut up in heaven (cf. viii. 2), it is evident that
it must be regarded as above the vault which spans the earth, or,
according to the words of Ps. cxlviii. 4, " above the heavens." '
Vers. 9-13. The Third Day. — The work of this day was
twofold, yet closely connected. At first the waters beneath the
heavens, i.e. those upon the surface of the earth, were gathered
together, so that the dry (n^n, the solid ground) appeared.
In what way the gathering of the earthly waters in the sea and
the appearance of the dry land were effected, whether by the
sinking or deepening of places in the body of the globe, into
which the water was drawn off, or by the elevation of the solid
ground, the record does not inform us, since it never describes
the process by which effects are produced. It is probable, how-
ever, that the separation was caused both by depression and
elevation. With the dry land the mountains naturally arose as
the headlands of the mainland. But of this we have no physi-
cal explanations, either in the account before us, or in the
poetical description of the creation in Ps. civ. Even if we
render Ps. civ. 8, "the mountains arise, and they (the waters)
1 In ver. 8 the LXX. interpolate x.ot.1 tlosu 6 Qiog vrt xaXoV (and God
saw that it was good), and transfer the words "and it was so" from the
end of ver. 7 to the close of ver. 6. Two apparent improvements, but in
reality two arbitrary changes. The transposition is copied from vers. 9,
15, 24 ; and in making the interpolation, the author of the gloss has not
observed that the division of the waters was not complete till the separa-
tion of tlie dry land from the water had taken place, and therefore the
proper place for the expression of approval is at the close of the work of
the third day.
CHAP. I. 9-13. 55
descend into the valleys, to the place which Thou (Jehovah)
hast founded for them," we have no proof, in this poetical ac-
count, of the elevation- theory of geology, since the psalmist is
not speaking as a naturalist, but as a sacred poet describing the
creation on the basis of Gen. i. " The dry" God called Earth,
and " the gathering of the waters" i.e. the place into which the
waters were collected, He called Sea. W®1, an intensive rather
than a numerical plural, is the great ocean, which surrounds the
mainland on all sides, so that the earth appears to be founded
upon seas (Ps. xxiv. 2). Earth and sea are the two constituents
of the globe, by the separation of which its formation was com-
pleted. The " seas " include the rivers which flow into the
ocean, and the lakes which are as it were "detached fragments"
of the ocean, though they are not specially mentioned here. By
the divine act of naming the two constituents of the globe, and
the divine approval which follows, this work is stamped with
permanency ; and the second act of the third day, the clothing
of the earth with vegetation, is immediately connected with it.
At the command of God " the earth brought forth green (NK^),
seed- yielding herb (3^), and fruit-bearing fruit-trees (^S YVf"
These three classes embrace all the productions of the vegetable
kingdom. KKH, lit. the young, tender green, which shoots up
after rain and covers the meadows and downs (2 Sam. xxiii. 4 ;
Job xxxviii. 27 ; Joel ii. 22 ; Ps. xxiii. 2), is a generic name for
all grasses and cryptogamous plants. 2^y, with the epithet
Vy. TTiV?) yielding or forming seed, is used as a generic term for
all herbaceous plants, corn, vegetables, and other plants by which
seed-pods are formed. >-\q j>y : not only fruit-trees, but all trees
and shrubs, bearing fruit in which there is a seed according to
its kind, i.e. fruit with kernels, pKn ?V (upon the earth) is not
to be joined to " fruit-tree," as though indicating the superior
size of the trees which bear seed above the earth, in distinction
from vegetables which propagate their species upon or in the
ground ; for even the latter bear their seed above the earth. It
is appended to Nt^"}^, as a more minute explanation : the earth
is to bring forth grass, herb, and trees, upon or above the
ground, as an ornament or covering for it. SPu? (after its
kind), from PP species, which is not only repeated in ver. 12 in
its old form VBTO in the case of the fruit-tree, but is also ap-
pended to the herb. It indicates that the herbs and trees sprang
56 TIIK FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
out of the earth according to their kinds, and received, together
with power to bear seed and fruit, the capacity to propagate
and multiply their own kind. In the case of the grass there is
no reference either to different kinds, or to the production of
seed, inasmuch as in the young green grass neither the one nor
the other is apparent to the eye. Moreover, we must not picture
the work of creation as consisting of the production of the first
tender germs which were gradually developed into herbs, shrubs,
and trees ; on the contrary, we must regard it as one element in
the miracle of creation itself, that at the word of God not only
tender grasses, but herbs, shrubs, and trees, sprang out of the
earth, each ripe for the . formation of blossom and the bearing
of seed and fruit, without the necessity of waiting for years
before the vegetation created was ready to blossom and bear
fruit. Even if the earth was employed as a medium in the
creation of the plants, since it was God who caused it to bring
them forth, they were not the product of the powers of nature,
generatio cequivoca in the ordinary sense of the word, but a work
of divine omnipotence, by which the trees came into existence
before their seed, and their fruit was produced in full develop-
ment, without expanding gradually under the influence of sun-
shine and rain.
Vers. 14-19. The Fourth Day. — After the earth had
been clothed with vegetation, and fitted to be the abode of
living beings, there were created on the fourth day the sun,
moon, and stars, heavenly bodies in which the elementary light
was concentrated, in order that its influence upon the earthly
globe might be sufficiently modified and regulated for living
beings to exist and thrive beneath its rays, in the water, in the
air, and upon the dry land. At the creative word of God the
bodies of light came into existence in the firmament, as lamps.
On l|njJ the singular of the predicate before the plural of the
subject, in ver. 14, v. 23, ix. 29, etc., vid. Gesenius, Heb. Gr.
§ 147. l"hiNE>, bodies of light, light-bearers, then lamps. These
bodies of light received a threefold appointment : (1) They were
" to divide between the day and the nigktj" or, according to ver.
IS, between the light and the darkness, in other words, to regu-
late from that time forward the difference, which had existed
ever since the creation of light, between the night ami the day.
CHAP. I. 14-19. 57
(2) They were to be (or serve : W\ after an imperative lias the
force of a command), — (a) for signs (sc. for the earth), partly as
portents of extraordinary events (Matt. ii. 2 ; Luke xxi. 25) and
divine judgments (Joel ii. 30 ; Jer. x. 2 ; Matt. xxiv. 29), partly
as showing the different quarters of the heavens, and as prog-
nosticating the changes in the weather ; — (b) for seasons, or for
fixed, definite times (O^0? from *W to fix, establish), — not for
festal seasons merely, but " to regulate definite points and periods
of time, by virtue of their periodical influence upon agriculture,
navigation, and other human occupations, as well as upon the
course of human, animal, and vegetable life (e.g. the breeding
time of animals, and the migrations of birds, Jer. viii. 7, etc.) ; —
(c) for days and years, i.e. for the division and calculation of
days and years. The grammatical construction will not allow
the clause to be rendered as a Hendiadys, viz. " as signs for
definite times and for days and years," or as signs both for the
times and also for days and years. (3.) They were to serve as
lamps upon the earth, i.e. to pour out their light, which is in-
dispensable to the growth and health of every creature. That
this, the primary object of the lights, should be mentioned last,
is correctly explained by Delitzsch ; " From the astrological and
chronological utility of the heavenly bodies, the record ascends
to their universal utility which arises from the necessity of light
for the growth and continuance of everything earthly." This
applies especially to the two great lights which were created by
God and placed in the firmament ; the greater to rule the clay,
the lesser to rule the night. "The great" and u the small" in
correlative clauses are to be understood as used comparatively
(cf. Gesenius, § 119, 1). That the sun and moon were intended,
was too obvious to need to be specially mentioned. It might
appear strange, however, that these lights should not receive
names from God, like the works of the first three days. This
cannot be attributed to forgetfulness on the part of the author,
as Tuch supposes. As a rule, the names were given by God
only to the greater sections into which the universe was divided,
and not to individual bodies (either plants or animals). The
man and the woman are the only exceptions (chap. v. 2). The
sun and moon are called great, not in comparison with the earth,
but in contrast with the stars, according to the amount of light
which shines from them upon the earth and determines their
PENT. — VOL. I. E
58 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
rule over the day and night ; not so much with reference to the
fact, that the stronger light of the sun produces the daylight,
and the weaker light of the moon illumines the night, as to the
influence which their light exerts by day and night upon all
nature, both organic and inorganic — an influence generally ad-
mitted, but by no means fully understood. In this respect the
sun and moon are the two great lights, the stars small bodies of
light ; the former exerting great, the latter but little, influence
upon the earth and its inhabitants.
1 This truth, wdiich arises from the relative magnitude of the
heavenly bodies, or rather their apparent size as seen from the
earth, is not affected by the fact that from the standpoint of
natural science man}' of the stars far surpass both sun and
moon in magnitude. Nor does the fact, that in our account,
which was written for inhabitants of the earth and for religious
purposes, it is only the utility of the sun, moon, and stars to the
inhabitants of the earth that is mentioned, preclude the possibi-
lity of each by itself, and all combined, fulfilling other purposes
in the universe of God. And not only is our record silent, but
God Himself made no direct revelation to man on this subject ;
because astronomy and physical science, generally, neither lead
to godliness, nor promise peace and salvation to the soul. Belief
in the truth of this account as a divine revelation could only be
shaken, if the facts which science has discovered as. indisputably
true, with regard to the number, size, and movements of the
heavenly bodies, were irreconcilable with the biblical account of
the creation. But neither the innumerable host nor the im-
measurable size of many of the heavenly bodies, nor the almost
infinite distance of the fixed stars from our earth and the solar
system, warrants any such assumption. Who can set bounds to
the divine omnipotence, and determine what and how much it
can create in a moment ? The objection, that the creation of
the innumerable and immeasurably great and distant heavenly
bodies in one day, is so disproportioned to the creation of this one
little globe in six days, as to be irreconcilable with our notions
of divine omnipotence and wisdom, does not affect the Bible,
but shows that the account of the creation has been misunder-
stood. We are not taught here that on one day, viz. the fourth,
God created all the heavenly bodies out of nothing, and in a
perfect condition ; on the contrary, we are told that in the begin-
CHAP. I. 14-19. 59
ning God created the heaven and the earth, and on the fourth
day that He made the sun, the moon, and the stars (planets,
comets, and fixed stars) in the firmament, to be lights for the
earth. According to these distinct words, the primary material,
not only of the earth, but also of the heaven and the heavenly
bodies, was created in the beginning. If, therefore, the heavenly
bodies were first made or created on the fourth day, as lights for
the earth, in the firmament of heaven ; the words can have no
other meaning than that their creation was completed on the
fourth day, just as the creative formation of our globe was
finished on the third ; that the creation of the heavenly bodies
therefore proceeded side by side, and probably by similar stages,
with that of the earth, so that the heaven with its stars was com-
pleted on the fourth day. Is this representation of the work of
creation, which follows in the simplest way from the word of
God, at variance with correct ideas of the omnipotence and wis-
dom of God ? Could not the Almighty create the innumerable
host of heaven at the same time as the earthly globe ? Or would
Omnipotence require more time for the creation of the moon,
the planets, and the sun, or of Orion, Sirius, the Pleiades, and
other heavenly bodies whose magnitude has not yet been ascer-
tained, than for the creation of the earth itself % Let us beware
of measuring the works of Divine Omnipotence by the standard
of human power. The fact, that in our account the gradual
formation of the heavenly bodies is not described with the same
minuteness as that of the earth ; but that, after the general
statement in ver. 1 as to the creation of the heavens, all that is
mentioned is their completion on the fourth day, when for the
first time they assumed, or were placed in, such a position with
regard to the earth as to influence its development ; may be ex-
plained on the simple ground that it was the intention of the
sacred historian to describe the work of creation from the stand-
point of the globe : in other words, as it would have appeared to
an observer from the earth, if there had been one in existence
at the time. For only from such a standpoint could this work
of God be made intelligible to all men, uneducated as well as
learned, and the account of it be made subservient to the reli-
gious wants of all.1
1 Most of the objections to the historical character of our account, which
have been founded upon the work of the fourth day, rest upon a miscon-
CO TIIE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Vers. 20-23. The Fifth Day. — " God said : Let the waters
swarm ivith swarms, with living beings, and let birds fly above the
earth in the face (the front, i.e. the side turned towards the earth)
of the firmament." ^"'.V? an(l 1?^. ai*e imperative. Earlier
translators, on the contrary, have rendered the latter as a rela-
tive clause, after the 7rer€iva 7reT6/u,eva of the LXX., " and with
birds that fly ;" thus making the birds to spring out of the water,
in opposition to chap. ii. 19. Even with regard to the element
out of which the water animals were created the text is silent ;
for the assertion that p&^ is to be understood " with a causative
colouring" is erroneous, and is not sustained by Ex. viii. 3 or
Ps. cv. 30. The construction with the accusative is common to
all verbs of multitude, p.t^, from pB>, to creep and swarm, is
applied, " without regard to size, to those animals which congre-
gate together in great numbers, and move about among one
another." rpn B>1M} anima viva, living soul, animated beings
(yid. ii. 7), is in apposition to pE>, " swarms consisting of living
beings." The expression applies not only to fishes, but to all
water animals from the greatest to the least, including reptiles,
etc. In carrying out His word, God created (ver. 21) the great
" tanninim" — lit. the long-stretched, from }?R, to stretch, — whales,
crocodiles, and other sea-monsters ; and " all moving living beings
with which the ivaters swarm after their kind, and all (evert/)
winged fowl after its kind." That the water animals and birds of
every kind were created on the same day, and before the land
animals, cannot be explained on the ground assigned by early
writers, that there is a similarity between the air and the water,
and a consequent correspondence between the two classes of ani-
mals. For in the light of natural history the birds are at all
events quite as near to the mammalia as to the fishes ; and the
supposed resemblance between the fins of fishes and the wings of
birds, is counterbalanced by the no less striking resemblance be-
ception of the proper point of view from which it should be studied. And.
in addition to that, the conjectures of astronomers as to the immeasurable
distance of most of the fixed stars, and the lame which a ray of light would
require to reach the earth, are accepted as indisputable mathematical proof;
whereas these approximative estimates of distance rest upon the unsubstan-
tiated supposition, that everything which lias been ascertained with regard
to the nature and motion of light in our solar system, must be equally true
of the light of the fixed stars.
CHAP. I. 20-31. Gl
real reason is rather this, that the creation proceeds throughout
from the lower to the higher ; and in this ascending scale the fishes
occupy to a great extent a lower place in the animal economy
than birds, and both water animals and birds a lower place than
land animals, more especially the mammalia. Again, it is not
stated that only a single pair was created of each kind ; on the
contrary, the words, " let the waters swarm with living beings,"
seem rather to indicate that the animals were created, not only
in a rich variety of genera and species, but in large numbers of
individuals. The fact that but one human being was created at
first, by no means warrants the conclusion that the animals were
created singly also ; for the unity of the human race has a very
different signification from that of the so-called animal species.
— (Ver. 22). As animated beings, the water animals and fowls
are endowed, through the divine blessing, with the power to be
fruitful and multiply. The word of blessing was the actual com-
munication of the capacity to propagate and increase in numbers.
Vers. 24-31. The Sixth Day. — Sea and air are filled
with living creatures ; and the word of God now goes forth to
the earth, to produce living beings after their kind. These are
divided into three classes. n9 -?? cattle, from ans, mutum, brutum
esse, generally denotes the larger domesticated quadrupeds (e.g.
chap, xlvii. 18 ; Ex. xiii. 12, etc.), but occasionally the larger
land animals as a whole. few (the creeping) embraces the smaller
land animals, which move either without feet, or with feet that
are scarcely perceptible, viz. reptiles, insects, and worms. In
ver. 25 they are distinguished from the race of water reptiles by
the term nmxn. px iirn (the old form of the construct state,
for pKH H*n), the beast of the earth, i.e. the freely roving wild ani-
mals.— " After its kind ;" this refers to all three classes of living
creatures, each of which had its peculiar species ; consequently
in ver. 25, where the word of God is fulfilled, it is repeated with
every class. This act of creation, too, like all that precede it, is
shown by the divine word " good" to be in accordance with the
will of God. But the blessing pronounced is omitted, the author
hastening to the account of the creation of man, in which the
work of creation culminated. The creation of man does not
take place through a word addressed by God to the earth, but as
the result of the divine decree, " We will make man in Our
G2 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
image, after our likeness" which proclaims at the very outset the
distinction and pre-eminence of man above all the other crea-
tures of the earth. The plural " We" was regarded by the
fathers and earlier theologians almost unanimously as indicative
of the Trinity : modern commentators, on the contrary, regard it
either as pluralis majestatis ; or as an address by God to Himself,
the subject and object being identical ; or as communicative, an
address to the spirits or angels who stand around the Deity and
constitute His council. The last is Philo's explanation : BiaXe-
jerai 6 roiv oXoov irarr^p rats eavrov Svva/xecriv (Swa/zet9= angels).
But although such passages as 1 Kings xxii. 19 sqq., Ps. lxxxix.
8, and Dan. x., show that God, as King and Judge of the world,
is surrounded by heavenly hosts, who stand around His throne
and execute His commands, the last interpretation founders
upon this rock : either it assumes without sufficient scriptural
authority, and in fact in opposition to such distinct passages as
chap. ii. 7, 22, Isa. xl. 13 seq., xliv. 24, that the spirits took part
in the creation of man ; or it reduces the plural to an empty
phrase, inasmuch as God is made to summon the angels to co-
operate in the creation of man, and then, instead of employing
them, is represented as carrying out the work alone. Moreover,
this view is irreconcilable with the words' " in our image, after
our likeness;" since man was created in the image of God alone
(ver. 27, chap. v. 1), and not in the image of either the angels,
or God and the angels. A likeness to the angels cannot be in-
to o
ferred from Heb. ii, 7, or from Luke xx. 30. Just as little
ground is there for regarding the plural here and in other pas-
sages (iii. 22, xi. 7 ; Isa. vi. 8, xli. 22) as reflective, an appeal to
self ; since the singular is employed in such cases as these, even
where God Himself is preparing for any particular work (cf. ii.
18 ; Ps. xii. 5 ; Isa. xxxiii. 10). No other explanation is left,
therefore, than to regard it as pluralis majestatis, — an interpre-
tation which comprehends in its deepest and most intensive form
(God speaking of Himself and with Himself in the plural num-
ber, not reverentice causa, but with reference to the fulness of the
divine powers and essences which He possesses) the truth that
lies at the foundation of the trinitarian view, viz. that the poten-
cies concentrated in the absolute Divine Being are something
more than powers and attributes of God ; that they are hypo-
stases, which in the further course of the revelation of God in
CHAP. I. 24-31. 63
His kingdom appeared with more and more distinctness as per-
sons of the Divine Being. On the words " in our image, after
our likeness" modern commentators have correctly observed, that
there is no foundation for the distinction drawn by the Greek,
and after them by many of the Latin Fathers, betwen gikodv
(imago) and 6fiola)cn<; (similitudo), the former of which they sup-
posed to represent the physical aspect of the likeness to God, the
latter the ethical ; but that, on the contrary, the older Lutheran
theologians were correct in stating that the two words are syno-
nymous, and are merely combined to add intensity to the thought :
" an image which is like Us" (Luther) ; since it is no more pos-
sible to discover a sharp or well-defined distinction in the ordinary
use of the words between D?>* and rnOT, than between 3 and 3.
D^, from Sv, lit. a shadow, hence sketch, outline, differs no more
from JTiOT, likeness, portrait, copy, than the German words Umriss
or Abriss (outline or sketch) from Bilcl or Abbild (likeness, copy).
3 and 3 are also equally interchangeable, as we may see from a
comparison of this verse with chap. v. 1 and 3. (Compare also
Lev. vi. 4 with Lev. xxvii. 12, and for the use of 3 to denote a
norm, or sample, Ex. xxv. 40, xxx. 32, 37, etc.). There is more
difficulty in deciding in what the likeness to God consisted. Cer-
tainly not in the bodily form, the upright position, or command-
ing aspect of the man, since God has no bodily form, and the
man's body was formed from the dust of the ground ; nor in the
dominion of man over nature, for this is unquestionably ascribed
to man simply as the consequence or effluence of his likeness to
God. Man is the image of God by virtue of his spiritual nature,
of the breath of God by which the being, formed from the dust
of the earth, became a living soul.1 The image of God consists,
therefore, in the spiritual personality of man, though not merely
in unity of self-consciousness and self-determination, or in the
fact that man was created a consciously free Ego ; for personality
1 " The breath of God became the soul of man ; the soul of man there-
fore is nothing but the breath of God. The rest of the world exists through
the word of God ; man through His own peculiar breath. This breath is the
seal and pledge of our relation to God, of our godlike dignity; whereas the
breath breathed into the animals is nothing but the common breath, the
life-wind of nature, which is moving everywhere, and only appears in the
animal fixed and bound into a certain independence and individuality, so
that the animal soul is nothing but a nature-soul individualized into cer-
tain, though still material spirituality." — Ziegler.
64 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES
is merely the basis and form of the divine likeness, not its real
essence. This consists rather in the fact, that the man endowed
with free self-conscious personality possesses, in his spiritual as
well as corporeal nature, a creaturely copy of the holiness and
blessedness of the divine life. This concrete essence of the
divine likeness was shattered by sin ; and it is only through
Christ, the brightness of the glory of God and the expression
of His essence (Heb. i. 3), that our nature is transformed into
the image of God again (Col. hi. 10; Eph. iv. 24). — " And they
(D"]X, a generic term for men) shall have dominion over the fish"
etc. There is something striking in the introduction of the ex-
pression " and over all the earth" after the different races of
animals have been mentioned, especially as the list of races
appears to be proceeded with afterwards. If this appearance
were actually the fact, it would be impossible to escape the con-
clusion that the text is faulty, and that rpn has fallen out ; so
that the reading should be, " and over all the wild beasts of the
earth" as the Syriac has it. But as the identity of " every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" (pan) with " every-
thing that creepeth upon the groitnd" (nEHXn) in ver. 25 is not
absolutely certain ; on the contrary, the change in expression
indicates a difference of meaning ; and as the Masoretic text is
supported by the oldest critical authorities {LXX.: Sam., OnL),
the Syriac rendering must be dismissed as nothing more than a
conjecture, and the Masoretic text be understood in the follow-
ing manner. The author passes on from the cattle to the entire
earth, and embraces all the animal creation in the expression,
" every moving thing (b'Enrr^) that moveth upon the earth,"'
just as in ver. 28, " every living thing rib'pnn upon the earth."
According to this, God determined to give to the man about to be
created in His likeness the supremacy, not only over the animal
world, but over the earth itself ; and this agrees with the blessing
in ver. 28, where the newly created man is exhorted to replenish
the earth and subdue it; whereas, according to the conjecture
of the Syriac, the subjugation of the earth by man would be
omitted from the divine decree. — Ver. 27. In the account of the
accomplishment of the divine purpose the words swell into a
jubilant song, so that we meet here for the first time with a
parallelismus membrornm, the creation of man being celebrated
in three parallel clauses. The distinction drawn between inx (in
CHAP. I. 24-31. 65
the image of God created He him) and Enx (as man and woman
created He them) must not be overlooked. The word DfiX,
which indicates that God created the man and woman as two
human beings, completely overthrows the idea that man was at
first androgynous (cf. chap. ii. 18 sqq.). By the blessing in
ver. 28, God not only confers upon man the power to multiply
and fill the earth, as upon the beasts in ver. 22, but also gives
him dominion over the earth and every beast. In conclusion,
the food of both man and beast is pointed out in vers. 29, 30,
exclusively from the vegetable kingdom. Man is to eat of
" every seed-bearing herb on the face of all the earth, and every
tree on ichich there are fruits containing seed" consequently of the
productions of both field and tree, in other words, of corn and
fruit ; the animals are to eat of " every green herb" i.e. of vege-
tables or green plants, and grass.
From this it follows, that, according to the creative will of
God, men wTere not to slaughter animals for food, nor were
animals to prey upon one another ; consequently, that the fact
which now prevails universally in nature and the order of the
world, the violent and often painful destruction of life, is not
a primary law of nature, nor a divine institution founded in
the creation itself, but entered the world along with death at
the fall of man, and became a necessity of nature through the
curse of sin. It was not till after the flood, that men received
authority from God to employ the flesh of animals as well as
the green herb as food (ix. 3) ; and the fact that, according to
the biblical view, no carnivorous animals existed at the first,
may be inferred from the prophetic announcements in Isa. xi.
6-8, lxv. 25, where the cessation of sin and the complete trans-
formation of the world into the kingdom of God are described
as being accompanied by the cessation of slaughter and the eat-
ing of flesh, even in the case of the animal kingdom. With
this the legends of the heathen world respecting the golden age
of the past, and its return at the end of time, also correspond
(cf. Gesenius on Isa. xi. 6-8). It is true that objections have
been raised by natural historians to this testimony of Scrip-
ture, but without scientific ground. For although at the pre-
sent time man is fitted by his teeth and alimentary canal for
the combination of vegetable and animal food ; and although
the law of mutual destruction so thoroughly pervades the whole
0)6 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
animal kingdom, that not only is the life of one sustained by
the death of another, but " as the graminivorous animals check
the overgrowth of the vegetable kingdom, so the excessive in-
crease of the former is restricted by the beasts of prey, and of
these again by the destructive implements of man;" and al-
though, again, not only beasts of prey, but evident symptoms of
disease are met with amoiiff the fossil remains of the aboriginal
animals : all these facts furnish no proof that the human and
animal races were originally constituted for death and destruc-
tion, or that disease and slaughter are older than the fall. For,
to reply to the last objection first, geology has offered no con-
clusive evidence of its doctrine, that the fossil remains of beasts
of prey and bones with marks of disease belong to a pre-Adamite
period, but has merely inferred it from the hypothesis already
mentioned (pp. 41, 42) of successive periods of creation. Again,
as even in the present order of nature the excessive increase of
the vegetable kingdom is restrained, not merely by the grami-
nivorous animals, but also by the death of the plants themselves
through the exhaustion of their vital powers ; so the wisdom of
the Creator could easily have set bounds to the excessive in-
crease of the animal world, without requiring the help of hunts-
men and beasts of prey, since many animals even now lose their
lives by natural means, without being slain by men or eaten by
beasts of prey. The teaching of Scripture, that death entered
the world through sin, merely proves that the human race was
created for eternal life, but by no means necessitates the as-
sumption that the animals were also created for endless exist-
ence. As the earth produced them at the creative word of God,
the different individuals and generations would also have passed
away and returned to the bosom of the earth, without violent
destruction by the claws of animals or the hand of man, as soon
as they had fulfilled the purpose of their existence. The decay
of animals is a law of nature established in the creation itself,
and not a consequence of sin, or an effect of the death brought
into the world by the sin of man. At the same time, it was so
far involved in the effects of the fall, that the natural decay of
the different animals was changed into a painful death or violent
end. Although in the animal kingdom, as it at present exists,
many varieties are so organized that they live exclusively upon
the flesh of other animals, which they kill and devour ; this by
CHAP. II. 1-3. 67
no means necessitates the conclusion, that the carnivorous beasts
of prey were created after the fall, or the assumption that they
were originally intended to feed upon flesh, and organized ac-
cordingly. If, in consequence of the curse pronounced upon
the earth after the sin of man, who was appointed head and
lord of nature, the whole creation was subjected to vanity and
the bondage of corruption (Rom. viii. 20 sqq.) ; this subjection
might have been accompanied by a change in the organization
of the animals, though natural science, which is based upon the
observation and combination of things empirically discovered,
could neither demonstrate the fact nor -explain the process. And
if natural science cannot boast that in any one of its many
branches it has discovered all the phenomena connected with
the animal and human organism of the existing world, how
could it pretend to determine or limit the changes through
which, this organism may have passed in the course of thousands
of years ?
The creation of man and his installation as ruler on the
earth brought the creation of all earthly beings to a close (ver.
31). God saw His work, and behold it was all very good; i.e.
everything perfect in its kind, so that every creature might reach
the goal appointed by the Creator, and accomplish the purpose
of its existence. By the application of the term " good " to
everything that God made, and the repetition of the word with
the emphasis "very" at the close of the whole creation, the
existence of anything evil in the creation of God is absolutely
denied, and the hypothesis entirely refuted, that the six days'
work merely subdued and fettered an ungodly, evil principle,
which had already forced its way into it. The sixth day, as
being the last, is distinguished above all the rest by the article —
WT DV "a day, the sixth" (Gesenius, § 111, 2a).
Chap. ii. 1-3. The Sabbath of Creation. — " Thus the
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." S3V
here denotes the totality of the beings that fill the heaven and
the earth: in other places (see especially Neh. ix. 6) it is applied
to the host of heaven, i.e. the stars (Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3), and
according to a still later representation, to the angels also (1
Kings xxii. 19 ; Isa. xxiv. 21 ; Neh. ix. 6 ; Ps. cxlviii. 2). These
words of ver. 1 introduce the completion of the work of crea-
G8 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
tion, and give a greater definiteness to the announcement in
vers. 2, 3, that on the seventh day God ended the work which
He had made, by ceasing to create, and blessing the day and
sanctifying it. The completion or finishing (n??) of the work
of creation on the seventh day (not on the sixth, as the LXX.,
Sam., and Syr. erroneously render it) can only be understood
by regarding the clauses vers. 2b and 3, which are connected
with ^i by i consec. as containing the actual completion, i.e. by
supposing the completion to consist, negatively in the cessation
of the work of creation, and positively in the blessing and sanc-
tifying of the seventh day. The cessation itself formed part of
the completion of the work (for this meaning of r\2V via1, chap,
vni. 22, Job xxxii. 1, etc.). As a human artificer completes his
work just when he has brought it up to his ideal and ceases to
work upon it, so in an infinitely higher sense, God completed
the creation of the world with all its inhabitants by ceasing to
produce anything new, and entering into the rest of His all-
sufficient eternal Being, from which He had come forth, as it
were, at and in the creation of a world distinct from His own
essence. Hence ceasing to create is called resting (rw) in Ex.
xx. 11, and being refreshed ($551) in Ex. xxxi. 17. The rest
into which God entered after the creation was complete, had its
own reality " in the reality of the work of creation, in contrast
with which the preservation of the world, when once created,
had the appearance of rest, though really a continuous crea-
tion " (Ziegler, p. 27). This rest of the Creator was indeed
" the consequence of His self-satisfaction in the now united and
harmonious, though manifold whole;" but this self-satisfaction
of God in His creation, which we call His pleasure in His work,
was also a spiritual power, which streamed forth as a blessing
upon the creation itself, bringing it into the blessedness of the
rest of God and filling it with His peace. This constitutes the
positive element in the completion which God gave to the work
of creation, by blessing and sanctifying the seventh day, be-
cause on it He found rest from the work which He by making
(nifc>j£ faciendo : cf . Ewald, § 2S0d) had created. The divine
act of blessing was a real communication of powers of salvation,
grace, and peace ; and sanctifying was not merely declaring
holy, but " communicating the attribute of holy," " placing in a
living relation to God, the Holy One, raising to a participation
CHAP. II. 1-3. ()9
in the pure clear light of the holiness of God." On K>nj5 see
Ex. xix. 6. The blessing and sanctifying of the seventh day had
regard, no doubt, to the Sabbath, which Israel as the people of
God was afterwards to keep ; but we are not to suppose that the
theocratic Sabbath was instituted here, or that the institution of
that Sabbath was transferred to the history of the creation. On
the contrary, the Sabbath of the Israelites had a deeper mean-
ing, founded in the nature and development of the created
world, not for Israel only, but for all mankind, or rather for the
whole creation. As the whole earthly creation is subject to the
changes of time and the law of temporal motion and develop-
ment ; so all creatures not only stand in need of definite re-
curring periods of rest, for the sake of recruiting their strength
and gaining new power for further development, but they also
look forward to a time when all restlessness shall give place to
the blessed rest of the perfect consummation. To this rest the
resting of God (77 KaraiTavaii) points forward ; and to this rest,
this divine <xa/3/3aTtcr/zo? (Heb. iv. 9), shall the whole world,
especially man, the head of the earthly creation, eventually come.
For this God ended His work by blessing and sanctifying the
day when the whole creation was complete. In connection with
Heb. iv., some of the fathers have called attention to the fact,
that the account of the seventh day is not summed up, like the
others, with the formula "evening was and morning was ;" thus,
e.g., Augustine writes at the close of his confessions : dies septimus
sine vespera est nee habet occasion, quia sanctificasti eum ad per-
mansionem sempiternam. But true as it is that the Sabbath of
God has no evening, and that the aaftftaTio-fjios, to which the
creature is to attain at the end of his course, will be bounded by
no evening, but last for ever; we must not, without further
ground, introduce this true and profound idea into the seventh
creation-day. We could only be warranted in adopting such
an interpretation, and understanding by the concluding dav
of the work of creation a period of endless duration, on the
supposition that the six preceding days were so many periods in
the world's history, which embraced the time from the begin-
ning of the creation to the final completion of its development.
But as the six creation-days, according to the words of the text,
were earthly days of ordinary duration, we must understand the
seventh in the same way ; and that all the more, because in every
70 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
passage, in which it is mentioned as the foundation of the theo-
cratic Sabbath, it is regarded as an ordinary day (Ex. xx. 11,
xxxi. 17). We must conclude, therefore, that on the seventh
day, on which God rested from His work, the world also, with
all its inhabitants, attained to the sacred rest of God ; that the
Kardirav(n<i and aafifiaTiarfios of God were made a rest and
sabbatic festival for His creatures, especially for man ; and that
this day of rest of the new created world, which the forefathers
of our race observed in paradise, as long as they continued in a
state of innocence and lived in blessed peace with their God
and Creator, was the beginning and type of the rest to which
the creation, after it had fallen from fellowship with God
through the sin of man, received a promise that it should once
more be restored through redemption, at its final consummation.
HISTORY OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH.
Chap. ii. 4-iv. 26.
Contents and Heading.
completion of the work of creation, is introduced as the " His-
tory of the heavens and the earth" and treats in three sections,
(a) of the original condition of man in paradise (chap. ii. 5-
25) ; (b) of the fall (chap, iii.) ; (c) of the division of the human
race into two widely different families, so far as concerns their
relation to God (chap. iv.). — The words, " these are the tholedoth
of the heavens and the earth when they icere created" form the
heading to what follows. This would never have been disputed,
had not preconceived opinions as to the composition of Genesis
obscured the vision of commentators. The fact that in every
other passage, in which the formula " these (and these) are the
tholedoth" occurs (viz. ten times in Genesis; also in Num. iii. 1,
Ruth iv. 18, 1 Chron. i. 29), it is used as a heading, and that in
this passage the true meaning of im^ri precludes the possibility
of its being an appendix to what precedes, fully decides the
question. The word rvfrVin, which is only used in the plural,
CHAP. II. 4. 71
and never occurs except in the construct state or with suffixes,
is a Hiphil noun from Tvin, and signifies literally the genera-
tion or posterity of any one, then the development of these
r generations or of his descendants ; in other words, the history of
those who are begotten, or the account of what happened to them
and what they performed. In no instance whatever is it the
history of the birth or origin of the person named in the geni-
tive, but always the account of his family and life. According
to this use of the word, we cannot understand by the tholedoth
of the heavens and the earth the account of the origin of the
universe, since according to the biblical view the different things
which make up the heavens and the earth can neither be re-
garded as generations or products of cosmogonic and geogonic
evolutions, nor be classed together as the posterity of the
heavens and the earth. All the creatures in the heavens and on
earth were made by God, and called into being by His word,
notwithstanding the fact that He caused some of them to come
forth from the earth. Again, as the completion of the heavens
and the earth with all their host has already been described in
chap. ii. 1-3, we cannot understand by " the heavens and the
earth," in ver. 4, the primary material of the universe in its
elementary condition (in which case the literal meaning of
Tvin would be completely relinquished, and the " tholedoth of
the heavens and the earth" be regarded as indicating this chaotic
beginning as the first stage in a series of productions), but the
universe itself after the completion of the creation, at the com-
mencement of the historical development which is subsequently
described. This places its resemblance to the other sections,
commencing with " these are the generations," beyond dispute.
Just as the tholedoth of Noah, for example, do not mention his
birth, but contain his history and the birth of his sons ; so the
tholedoth of the heavens and the earth do not describe the origin
of the universe, but what happened to the heavens and the
earth after their creation. DiOlirQ does not preclude this,
though we cannot render it " after they were created." For
even if it were grammatically allowable to resolve the participle
into a pluperfect, the parallel expressions in chap. v. 1, 2,
would prevent our doing so. As " the day of their creation "
mentioned there, is not a day after the creation of Adam, but
the day on which he was created ; the same words, when occur-
72 HIE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
ring here, must also refer to a time when the heavens and the
earth were already created : and just as in chap. v. 1 the crea-
tion of the universe forms the starting-point to the account
of the development of the human race through the generations
of Adam, and is recapitulated for that reason ; so here the
creation of the universe is mentioned as the starting-point to the
account of its historical development, because this account looks
back to particular points in the creation itself, and describes
them more minutely as the preliminaries to the subsequent
course of the world. D&ron is explained by the clause, "in the
day that Jehovah God created the earth and the heavens." Al-
though this clause is closely related to what follows, the sim-
plicity of the account prevents our regarding it as the protasis
of a period, the apodosis of which does not follow till ver. 5 or
even ver. 7. The former is grammatically impossible, because
in ver. 5 the noun stands first, and not the verb, as we should
expect in such a case (cf. iii. 5). The latter is grammatically
tenable indeed, since vers. 5, 6, might be introduced into the
main sentence as conditional clauses ; but it is not probable, in-
asmuch as we should then have a parenthesis of most unnatural
length. The clause must therefore be regarded as forming part
of the heading. There are two points here that arc worthy of
notice: first, the unusual combination, "earth and heaven,"
which only occurs in Ps. cxlviii. 13, and shows that the earth is
the scene of the history about to commence, which was of such
momentous importance to the whole world ; and secondly, the
introduction of the name Jehovah in connection with Elohim.
That the hypothesis, which traces the interchange in the two
names in Genesis to different documents, does not suffice to
explain the occurrence of Jehovah Elohim in chap. ii. 4-iii. 24,
even the supporters of this hypothesis cannot possibly deny.
Not only is God called Elohim alone in the middle of this sec-
tion, viz. in the address to the serpent, a clear proof that the
interchange of the names has reference to their different signi-
fications ; but the use. of the double name, which occurs here
twenty times though rarely met with elsewhere, is always signi-
ficant. In the Pentateuch we only find it in Ex. ix. 30 ; in the
other books of the Old Testament, in 2 Sam. vii. 22, 25; 1
Chron. xvii. 16, 17 ; 2 Chron. vi. 41, 42 ; Ps. lxxxiv. 8, 11 ; and
Ps. 1. 1, where the order is reversed ; and in every instance it is
CHAP. II. 4. 73
used with peculiar emphasis, to give prominence to the fact that
Jehovah is truly Elohim, whilst in Ps. I. 1 the Psalmist advances
from the general name El and Elohim to Jehovah, as the personal
name of the God of Israel. In this section the combination
Jehovah Elohim is expressive of the fact, that Jehovah is God, or
one with Elohim. Hence Elohim is placed after Jehovah. For
the constant use of the double name is not intended to teach that
Elohim who created the world was Jehovah, but that Jehovah,
who visited man in paradise, who punished him for the trans-
gression of His command, but gave him a promise of victory
over the tempter, was Elohim, the same God, who created the
heavens and the earth.
The two names may be distinguished thus : Elohim, the
plural of Pii?S, which is only used in the loftier style of poetry, is
an infinitive noun from i^X to fear, and signifies awe, fear, then
the object of fear, the highest Being to be feared, like "ins, which
is used interchangeably with it in chap. xxxi. 42, 53, and fcOitt in
Ps. lxxvi. 12 (cf. Isa. viii. 12, 13). The plural is not used for
the abstract, in the sense of divinity, but to express the notion of
God in the fulness and multiplicity of the divine powers. It is
employed both in a numerical, and also in an intensive sense, so
that Elohim is applied to the (many) gods of the heathen as well
as to the one true God, in whom the highest and absolute ful-
ness of the divine essence is contained. In this intensive sense
Elohim depicts the one true God as the infinitely great and ex-
alted One, who created the heavens and the earth, and who pre-
serves and governs every creature. According to its derivation,
however, it is object rather than subject, so that in the plural
form the concrete unity of the personal God falls back behind
the wealth of the divine potencies which His being contains. In
this sense, indeed, both in Genesis and the later, poetical, books,
Elohim is used without the article, as a proper name for the true
God, even in the mouth of heathen (1 Sam. iv. 7) ; but in other
places, and here and there in Genesis, it occurs as an appellative
toith the article, by which prominence is given to the absolute-
ness or personality of God (chap. v. 22, vi. 9, etc.). — The name
Jehovah, on the other hand, was originally a proper name, and
according to the explanation given by God Himself to Moses
(Ex. iii. 14, 15), was formed from the imperfect of the verb
PWI = rvn. God calls Himself nvix neta rvnx, then more briefly
PENT. — VOL. I. F
74 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
rvns, and then again, by changing the first person into the third,
mn\ From the derivation of this name from the imperfect,
it follows that it was either pronounced HjrP or nV£, and had
come down from the pre-Mosaic age ; for the form ^ had been
forced out of the spoken language by rrn even in Moses' time.
The Masoretic pointing njPP belongs to a time when the Jews
had long been afraid to utter this name at all, and substituted
^'"W, the vowels of which therefore were placed as iTm, the word
to be read, under the Kethib miT, unless njrT" stood in apposition
to 'tflK, in which case the word was read fffWj and pointed ninj
(a pure monstrosity).1 This custom, which sprang from a mis-
interpretation of Lev. xxiv. 16, appears to have originated
shortly after the captivity. Even in the canonical writings of
this age the name Jehovah was less and less employed, and in
the Apocrypha and the Septuagint version 6 Kvpios (the Lord)
is invariably substituted, a custom in which the New Testament
writers follow the LXX. (vid. Oehler). — If we seek for the
meaning of miT, the expression ppilN "IC'X n\-|tf, in Ex. iii. 14, is
neither to be rendered eo-ofxat 09 eaofiai (Aq., Theodt.), " I
shall be that I shall be " (Luther), nor " I shall be that which
I will or am to be" (M. Baumgarten). Nor does it mean, " He
who will be because He is Himself, the God of the future "
(Hofmann). For in names formed from the third person im-
perfect, the imperfect is not a future, but an aorist. According
to the fundamental signification of the imperfect, names so
formed point out a person as distinguished by a frequently or
constantly manifested quality, in other words, they express a dis-
tinctive characteristic (vid. Ewald, § 136 ; chap. xxv. 26, xxvii.
36, also xvi. 11 and xxi. 6). The Vulgate gives it correctly:
ego sum qui sum, "I am who I am." " The repetition of the verb
in the same form, and connected only by the relative, signifies
that the being or act of the subject expressed in the verb is de-
1 For a fuller discussion of the meaning and pronunciation of the name
Jehovah vid. Hengstenberg, Dissertations on the Pentateuch i. p. 213 sqq. ;
Oehler in Herzog's Cyclopaedia ; and Hblemann in his Bibelstudien. The last,
in common with Stier and others, decides in favour of the Masoretic pointing
HiiT as giving the original pronunciation, chiefly on the ground of Rev. i. 4
and 5, 8; but the theological expansion 6 uv x,ccl 6 yv kcci 6 spwpfos cannot be
regarded as a philological proof of the formation of miT by the fusion of
nin, nin, >n» into one word.
CHAP. II. 4. 75
termined only by the subject itself" (Hofmann). The verb ^r\
signifies " to be, to happen, to become ; " but as neither happen-
ing nor becoming is applicable to God, the unchangeable, since
the pantheistic idea of a becoming God is altogether foreign
to the Scriptures, we must retain the meaning "to be;" not
forgetting, however, that as the Divine Being is not a resting,
or, so to speak, a dead being, but is essentially living, displaying
itself as living, working upon creation, and moving in the world,
the formation of ffiiT from the imperfect precludes the idea of
abstract existence, and points out the Divine Being as moving,
pervading history, and manifesting Himself in the world. So
far then as the words iTTtK ItSt? rvriK are condensed into a proper
name in niiT1, and God, therefore, " is He who is," inasmuch as
in His being, as historically manifested, He is the self-deter-
mining one, the name Jehovah, which we have retained as
being naturalized in the ecclesiastical phraseology, though we
are quite in ignorance of its correct pronunciation, " includes
both the absolute independence of God in His historical move-
ments," and " the absolute constancy of God, or the fact that
in everything, in both words and deeds, He is essentially in
harmony with Himself, remaining always consistent" (Oehler).
The " 1 am who am," therefore, is the absolute I, the absolute
personality, moving with unlimited freedom ; and in distinction
from Elohim (the Being to be feared), He is the personal God
in His historical manifestation, in which the fulness of the
Divine Being unfolds itself to the world. This movement of
the personal God in history, however, has reference to the re-
alization of the great purpose of the creation, viz. the salvation
of man. Jehovah therefore is the God of the history of sal-
vation. This is not shown in the etymology of the name, but
in its historical expansion. It was as Jehovah that God mani-
fested Himself to Abram (xv. 7), when He made the covenant
with him; and as this name was neither derived from an attribute
of God, nor from a divine manifestation, we must trace its origin
to a revelation from God, and seek it in the declaration to Abram,
" I am Jehovah." Just as Jehovah here revealed Himself to
Abram as the God who led him out of Ur of the Chaldees, to
give him the land of Canaan for a possession, and thereby de-
scribed Himself as the author of all the promises which Abram
received at his call, and which were renewed to him and to his
76 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
descendants, Isaac and Jacob ; so did He reveal Himself to
Moses (Ex. iii.) as the God of his fathers, to fulfil His promise
to their seed, the people of Israel. Through these revelations
Jehovah became a proper name for the God, who was working
out the salvation of fallen humanity; and in this sense, not only
is it used proleptically at the call of Abram (chap, xii.), but trans-
ferred to the primeval times, and applied to all the manifesta-
tions and acts of God which had for their object the rescue of
the human race from its fall, as well as to the special plan in-
augurated in the call of Abram. The preparation commenced
in paradise. To show this, Moses has introduced the name
Jehovah into the history in the present chapter, and has indi-
cated the identity of Jehovah with Elohim, not only by the
constant association of the two names, but also by the fact that
in the heading (ver. 4b) he speaks of the creation described in
chap. i. as the work of Jehovah Elohim.
PARADISE. — CHAP. II. 5-25.
The account in vers. 5-25 is not a second, complete and
independent history of the creation, nor does it contain mere
appendices to the account in chap. i. ; but it describes the com-
mencement of the history of the human race. This commence-
ment includes not only a complete account of the creation of
the first human pair, but a description of the place which God
prepared for their abode, the latter being of the highest impor-
tance in relation to the self-determination of man, with its mo-
mentous consequences to both earth and heaven. Even in the
history of the creation man takes precedence of all other crea-
tures, as being created in the image of God and appointed lord
of all the earth, though he is simply mentioned there as the last
and highest link in the creation. To this our present account
is attached, describing with greater minuteness the position of
man in the creation, and explaining the circumstances which
exerted the greatest influence upon his subsequent career.
These circumstances were — the formation of man from the dust
of the earth and the divine breath of life ; the tree of knowledge
in paradise; the formation of the woman, and the relation of
the woman to the man. Of these three elements, the first
forms the substratum to the other two. Hence the more exact
CHAP. II. 5, 6. 77
account of the creation of Adam is subordinated to, and in-
serted in, the description of paradise (ver. 7). In vers. 5 and 6,
with which the narrative commences, there is an evident allusion
to paradise : " And as yet there urns (arose, grew) no shrub of
the field upon the earth, and no herb of the field sprouted ; for
Jehovah El had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there
was no man to till the ground; and a mist arose from the earth
and watered the ichole surface of the ground." n\n in parallelism
with nm* means to become, to arise, to proceed. Although the
growth of the shrubs and sprouting of the herbs are repre-
sented here as dependent upon the rain and the cultivation of
the earth by man, we must not understand the words as mean-
ing that there was neither shrub nor herb before the rain and
dew, or before the creation of man, and so draw the conclusion
that the creation of the plants occurred either after or con-
temporaneously with the creation of man, in direct contradic-
tion to chap. i. 11, 12. The creation of the plants is not alluded
to here at all, but simply the planting of the garden in Eden.
The growing of the shrubs and sprouting of the herbs is
different from the creation or first production of the vegetable
kingdom, and relates to the growing and sprouting of the plants
and germs which were called into existence by the creation, the
natural development of the plants as it had steadily proceeded
ever since the creation. This was dependent upon rain and
human culture ; their creation was not. Moreover, the shrub
and herb of the field do not embrace the whole of the vegetable
productions of the earth. It is not a fact that " the field is
used in the second section in the same sense as the earth in the
first." rnb is not " the widespread plain of the earth, the broad
expanse of land," but a field of arable land, soil fit for cultiva-
tion, which forms only a part of the "earth" or "ground."
Even the "beast of the field" in ver. 19 and iii. 1 is not
synonymous with the " beast of the earth" in chap. i. 24, 25,
but is a more restricted term, denoting only such animals as
live upon the field and are supported by its produce, whereas
the " beast of the earth" denotes all wild beasts as distinguished
from tame cattle and reptiles. In the same way, the " shrub of
the field" consists of such shrubs and tree-like productions of
the cultivated land as man raises for the sake of their fruit, and
the " herb of the field," all seed-producing plants, both corn
78 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
and vegetables, which serve as food for man and beast. — The
mist p^ vapour, which falls as rain, Job xxxvi. 27) is cor-
rectly* regarded by Delitzsch as the creative beginning of the
rain (T'BlpP) itself, from which we may infer, therefore, that it
rained before the flood.
Ver. 7. " Then Jehovah God formed man from dust of the
ground." "ISV is the accusative of the material employed (Ewald
and Gesenius). The Vav consec. imperf. in vers. 7, 8, 9, does not
indicate the order of time, or of thought; so that the meaning
is not that God planted the garden in Eden after He had
created Adam, nor that He caused the trees to grow after He
had planted the garden and placed the man there. The latter
is' opposed to ver. 15; the former is utterly improbable. The
process of man's creation is described minutely here, because it
serves to explain his relation to God and to the surrounding
world. He was formed from dust (not de limo terro?, from a
clod of the earth, for nsy is not a solid mass, but the finest part
of the material of the earth), and into his nostril a breath of
life was breathed, by which he became an animated being.
Hence the nature of man consists of a material substance and
an immaterial principle of life. " The breath of life" i.e. breath
producing life, does not denote the spirit by which man is dis
tinguished from the animals, or the soul of man from that
of the beasts, but only the life-breath (vid. 1 Kings xvii. 17).
It is true, nrx': generally signifies the human soul, but in
chap. vii. 22 D^n nrrno^J is used of men and animals both ;
and should any one explain this, on the ground that the allusion
is chiefly to men, and the animals are connected per zeugma,
or should he press the ruach attached, and deduce from this
the use of neshamah in relation to men and animals, there are
several passages in which neshamah is synonymous with ruach
(e.g. Isa. xlii. 5 ; Job xxxii. 8, xxxiii. 4), or D^n nn applied to
animals (chap. vi. 17, vii. 15), or again neshamah used as equi-
valent to nephesh (e.g. Josh. x. 40, cf. vers. 28, 30, 32). For
neshamah, the breathing, ttvoj], is " the ruach in action" (Auber-
len). Beside this, the man formed from the dust became,
through the breathing of the " breath of life," a n*n rtffM, an
animated, and as such a living being ; an expression which is
also applied to fishes, birds, and land animals (i. 20, 21, 24, 30),
and there is no proof of pre-eminence on the part of man. As
CHAP. II. 7. 79
n»n t;D35 yjrvx/] ^(btra, does not refer to the soul merely, but to
the whole man as an animated being, so n^^ does not denote
the spirit of man as distinguished from body and soul. On the
relation of the soul to the spirit of man nothing can be gathered
from this passage ; the words, correctly interpreted, neither
show that the soul is an emanation, an exhalation of the human
spirit, nor that the soul was created before the spirit and merely
received its life from the latter. The formation of man from
dust and the breathing of the breath of life we must not under-
stand in a mechanical sense, as if God first of all constructed a
human figure from dust, and then, by breathing His breath of
life into the clod of earth which he had shaped into the form of
a man, made it into a living being. The words are to be under-
stood OeoirpeTrws. By an act of divine omnipotence man arose
from the dust ; and in the same moment in which the dust, by
virtue of creative omnipotence, shaped itself into a human form,
it was pervaded by the divine breath of life, and created a living
being, so that we cannot say the body was earlier than the soul.
The dust of the earth is merely the earthly substratum, which
was formed by the breath of life from God into an animated,
living, self-existent being. When it is said, " God breathed
into his nostril the breath of life," it is evident that this descrip-
tion merely gives prominence to the peculiar sign of life, viz.
breathing ; since it is obvious, that what God breathed into
man could not be the air which man breathes ; for it is not
that which breathes, but simply that which is breathed. Conse-
quently, breathing into the nostril can only mean, that " God,
through His own breath, produced and combined with the
bodily form that principle of life, which was the origin of all
human life, and which constantly manifests its existence in the
breath inhaled and exhaled through the nose" (Delitzsch, Psychol,
p. 62). Breathing, however, is common both to man and beast ;
so that this cannot be the sensuous analogon of the supersensuous
spiritual life, but simply the principle of the physical life of the
soul. Nevertheless the vital principle in man is different from
that in the animal, and the human soul from the soul of the
beast. This difference is indicated by the way in which man
received the breath of life from God, and so became a living
soul. " The beasts arose at the creative word of God, and no
communication of the spirit is mentioned even in ch. ii. 19; the
80 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
origin of their soul was coincident with that of their corporeality,
and their life was merely the individualization of the universal
life, with which all matter was filled in the beginning by the
Spirit of God. On the other hand, the human spirit is not a
mere individualization of the divine breath which breathed upon
the material of the world, or of the universal spirit of nature ;
nor is his body merely a production of the earth when stimu-
lated by the creative word of God. The earth does not bring
forth his body, but God Himself puts His hand to the work and
forms him ; nor does the life already imparted to the world by
the Spirit of God individualize itself in him, but God breathes
directly into the nostrils of the one man, in the whole fulness of
His personality, the breath of life, that in a manner correspond-
ing to the personality of God he may become a living soul"
(Delitzscli). This was the foundation of the pre-eminence of
man, of his likeness to God and his immortality ; for by this
he was formed into a personal being, whose immaterial part was
not merely soul, but a soul breathed entirely by God, since
spirit and soul were created together through the inspiration of
God. As the spiritual nature of man is described simply bv
the act of breathing, which is discernible by the senses, so the
name which God gives him (chap. v. 2) is founded upon the
earthly side of his being : Adam, from n»*TK (adamah), earth,
the earthly element, like homo from humus, or from %<zycia,
Xai-iai, ^ajxaOev, to guard him from self-exaltation, not from the
red colour of his body, since this is not a distinctive character-
istic of man, but common to him and to many other creatures.
The name man (Mensch), on the other hand, from the Sanskrit
mdnuscha, manuschja, from man to think, manas = mens, ex-
presses the spiritual inwardness of our nature.
Ver. 8. The abode, which God prepared for the first man,
was a "garden in Eden" also called "the garden of Eden" (ver.
15, chap. iii. 23, 24 ; Joel ii. 3), or Eden (Isa. li. 3 ; Ezek. xxviii.
13, xxxi. 9). Eden (}"}V, i.e. delight) is the proper name of a
particular district, the situation of which is described in vers. 10
sqq. ; but it must not be confounded with the Eden of Assyria
(2 Kings xix. 12, etc.) and Coelesyria (Amos i. 5), which is writ-
ten with double seghol. The garden (lit. a place hedged round)
was to the east, i.e. in the eastern portion, and is generally called
Paradise from the Septuagint version, in which the word is ren-
CHAP. II. 10-14. 81
dered irapaZeiaos. This word, according to Spiegel, was derived
from the Zendic pairi-daeza, a hedging round, and passed into
the Hebrew in the form D^na (Cant. iv. 13 ; Eccl. ii.5 ; Neh.
ii. 8), a park, probably through the commercial relations which
Solomon established with distant countries. In the garden itself
God caused all kinds of trees to grow out of the earth ; and
among them were two, which were called "the tree of life" and
" the tree of knowledge of good and evil," on account of their
peculiar significance in relation to man (see ver. 16 and chap. iii.
22). rijrnn, an infinitive, as Jer. xxii. 16 shows, has the article
here because the phrase jni 31L3 DJH is regarded as one word, and
in Jeremiah from the nature of the predicate. — Ver. 10. "And
there was a river going out of Eden, to water the garden ; and from
thence it divided itself and became four heads ;" i.e. the stream
took its rise in Eden, flowed through the garden to water it, and
on leaving the garden was divided into four heads or beginnings
of rivers, that is, into four arms or separate streams. For this
meaning of D^'fcCi see Ezek. xvi. 25, Lam. ii. 19. Of the four
rivers whose names are given to show the geographical situa-
tion of paradise, the last two are unquestionably Tigris and
Euphrates. Hiddehel occurs in Dan. x. 4 as the Hebrew name
for Tigris ; in the inscriptions of Darius it is called Tigrd (or the
arrow, according to Strabo, Pliny, and Curtius), from the Zendic
tighra, pointed, sharp, from which probably the meaning stormy
{rapidus Tigris, Tlor. Carm. 4, 14, 46) was derived. It flows
before (riEHp), in front of, Assyria, not to the east of Assyria ;
for the province of Assyria, which must be intended here, was
on the eastern side of the Tigris : moreover, neither the mean-
ing, " to the east of/' nor the identity of DEHp and D"ipE has
been, or can be, established from chap. iv. 16, 1 Sam. xiii. 5,
or Ezek. xxxix. 11, which are the only other passages in which
the word occurs, as Ewald himself acknowledges. P'raih, which
was not more minutely described because it was so generally
known, is the Euphrates ; in old Persian, Ufrdta, according to
Delitzsch, or the good and fertile stream ; Ufrdtu, according to
Spiegler, or the well-progressing stream. According to the
present condition of the soil, the sources of the Euphrates and
Tigris are not so closely connected that they could be regarded
as the commencements of a common stream which has ceased to
exist. The main sources of the Tigris, it is true, are only 2000
82 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
paces from the Euphrates, but they are to the north of Diar-
bekr, in a range of mountains which is skirted on three sides by
the upper course of the Euphrates, and separates them from
this river. We must also look in the same country, the high-
lands of Armenia, for the other two rivers, if the description of
paradise actually rests upon an ancient tradition, and is to be
regarded as something more than a mythical invention of the
fancy. The name Phishon sounds like the Phasis of the an-
cients, with which Belaud supposed it to be identical ; and Cha-
vilah like Colchis, the well-known gold country of the ancients.
But the $aa-L<; 6 KoX^o<; (Herod. 4, 37, 45) takes its*rise in the
Caucasus, and not in Armenia. A more probable conjecture,
therefore, points to the Cyrus of the ancients, which rises in
Armenia, flows northwards to a point not far from the eastern
border of Colchis, and then turns eastward in Iberia, from which
it flows in a south-easterly direction to the Caspian Sea. The
expression, " which comjyasseth the whole land of Chavilah,"" would
apply very well to the course of this river from the eastern bor-
der of Colchis ; for 33D does not necessarily signify to surround,
but to pass through with different turns, or to skirt in a semi-
circular form, and Chavilah may have been larger than modern
Colchis. It is not a valid objection to this explanation, that in
every other place Chavilah is a district of Southern Arabia.
The identity of this Chavilah with the Chavilah of the Jok-
tanites (chap. x. 29, xxv. 18 ; 1 Sam. xv. 7) or of the Cushites
(chap. x. 7 ; 1 Chron. i. 9) is disproved not only by the article
used here, which distinguishes it from the other, but also by the
description of it as land where gold, bdolach, and the shoham-
stone are found ; a description neither requisite nor suitable in
the case of the Arabian Chavilah, since these productions are
not to be met with there. This characteristic evidently shows
that the Chavilah mentioned here was entirely distinct from the
other, and a land altogether unknown to the Israelites. — What
we are to understand by n?"i2n is uncertain. There is no certain
ground for the meaning uj)eai'ls" given in Saad. ami the later
Rabbins, and adopted by Bochart and others. The rendering
ftBeXXa or fiBeXXtov, bdellium, a vegetable gum, of which l)io-
scorus says, oi Be fidBeXtcov ol Be fidXyov icaXovai, and Pliny, " alii
brochon appellant, alii malacham, alii maldacon" is favoured by
the similarity in the name ; but, on the other side, there is the
CHAP. II. 10-14. 83
fact that Pliny describes this gum as nigrum and Jiadrobolon,
and Dioscorus as vTronrekLov (blackish), which does not agree
with Num. xi. 7, where the appearance of the wliite grains of
the manna is compared to that of bdolach. — The stone shoham,
according to most of the early versions, is probably the beryl,
which is most likely the stone intended by the LXX. (o \fflos
6 7rpd(nvo?, the leek-green stone), as Pliny, when speaking of
beryls, describes those as probatissimi, qui viriditatem puri maris
imitantur ; but according to others it is the onyx or sardonyx
(vid. Ges. s. v.).1 The Gihon (from Hia to break forth) is the
Araxes, which rises in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates,
flows from west to east, joins the Cyrus, and falls with it into
the Caspian Sea. The name corresponds to the Arabic JaiJain,
a name given by the Arabians and Persians to several large
rivers. The land of Gush cannot, of course, be the later Cush,
or Ethiopia, but must be connected with the Asiatic Koacraia,
which reached to the Caucasus, and to which the Jews (of Shir-
wan) still give this name. But even though these four streams
do not now spring from one source, but on the contrary their
sources are separated by mountain ranges, this fact does not
prove that the narrative before us is a myth. Along with or
since the disappearance of paradise, that part of the earth may
have undergone such changes that the precise locality can no
longer be determined with certainty.2
1 The two productions furnish no proof that the Phishon is to be sought
for in India. The assertion that the name bdolach is Indian, is quite un-
founded, for it cannot be proved that maddlaka in Sanscrit is a vegetable
gum ; nor has this been proved of maddra, which is possibly related to it
(cf. Lassen's indisclie Althk. 1, 290 note). Moreover, Pliny speaks of Bac-
triana as the land " in qua Bdellium est nominatissimum" although he adds,
"nascitur et in Arabia Tndiaque, et Media ac Babylone ;" and Isidorus says
of the Bdella which comes from India, " Sordida est et nigra et majori
gleba" which, again, does not agree with Num. xi. 7. — The shoham-stone
also is not necessarily associated with India ; for although Pliny says of the
beryls, "India eos gignit, raro alibi repertos" he also observes, " in nostra
orbe aliquando circa Ponturn inveniri putantur.'1''
2 That the continents of our globe have undergone great changes since
the creation of the human race, is a truth sustained by the facts of natural
history and the earliest national traditions, and admitted by the most cele-
brated naturalists. (See the collection of proofs made by Keerl.) These
changes must not be all attributed to the flood ; many may have occurred
before and many after, like the catastrophe in which the Dead Sea origin-
84 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Vers. 15-17. After the preparation of the garden in Eden
God placed the man there, to dress it and to keep it. ^CN1? not
merely expresses removal thither, but the fact that the man was
placed there to lead a life of repose, not indeed in inactivity,
but in fulfilment of the course assigned him, which was very
different from the trouble and restlessness of the weary toil into
which he was plunged by sin. In paradise he was to dress
(colere) the garden ; for the earth was meant to be tended and
cultivated by man, so that without human culture, plants and
even the different varieties of corn degenerate and grow wild.
Cultivation therefore preserved (not? to keep) the divine planta-
tion, not merely from injury on the part of any evil power,
either penetrating into, or already existing in the creation, but
also from running wild through natural degeneracy. As nature
was created for man, it was his vocation not only to ennoble it
by his work, to make it subservient to himself, but also to raise
it into the sphere of the spirit and further its glorification.
This applied not merely to the soil beyond the limits of paradise,
but to the garden itself, which, although the most perfect portion
of the terrestrial creation, was nevertheless susceptible of de-
velopment, and which was allotted to man, in order that by his
care and culture he might make it into a transparent mirror of
the glory of the Creator. — Here too the man was to commence
his own spiritual development. To this end God had planted
two trees in the midst of the garden of Eden ; the one to train
his spirit through the exercise of obedience to the word of God,
the other to transform his earthly nature into the spiritual
essence of eternal life. These trees received their names from
their relation to man, that is to say, from the effect which the
eating of their fruit was destined to produce upon human life
and its development. The fruit of the tree of life conferred the
power of eternal, immortal life ; and the tree of knowledge was
planted, to lead men to the knowledge of good and evil. The
knowledge of good and evil was no mere experience of good and
ill, but a moral element in that spiritual development, through
ated, without being recorded in history as this has been. Still less must we
interpret chap. xi. ] (compared with x. 25), as Fabri and Kcerl have done,
as indicating a complete revolution of the globe, or a geogonic process, by
which the continents of the old world were divided, and assumed their pre-
sent physiognomy
CHAP. II. 15—17. 85
which the man created in the image of God was to attain to the
filling out of that nature, which had already been planned in the
likeness of God. For not to know what good and evil are, is a
sign of either the immaturity of infancy (Deut. i. 39), or the
imbecility of age (2 Sam. xix. 35) ; whereas the power to dis-
tinguish good and evil is commended as the gift of a king (1
Kings iii. 9) and the wisdom of angels (2 Sam. xiv. 17), and in
the highest sense is ascribed to God Himself (chap. iii. 5, 22).
Why then did God prohibit man from eating of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, with the threat that, as soon as he
ate thereof, he would surely die? (The inf. abs. before the
finite verb intensifies the latter: vid. Ewald, § 312a). Are we
to regard the tree as poisonous, and suppose that some fatal pro-
perty resided in the fruit? A supposition which so complete^
ignores the ethical nature of sin is neither warranted by the
antithesis, nor by what is said in chap. iii. 22 of the tree of
life, nor by the fact that the eating of the forbidden fruit was
actually the cause of death. Even in the case of the tree of
life, the power is not to be sought in the physical character of
the fruit. No earthly fruit possesses the power to give immor-
tality to the life which it helps to sustain. Life is not rooted
in man's corporeal nature ; it was in his spiritual nature that it
had its origin, and from this it derives its stability and per-
manence also. It may, indeed, be brought to an end through
the destruction of the body ; but it cannot be exalted to per-
petual duration, i.e. to immortality, through its preservation and
sustenance. And this applies quite as much to the original
nature of man, as to man after the fall. A body formed from
earthly materials could not be essentially immortal : it would of
necessity either be turned to earth, and fall into dust again, or
be transformed by the spirit into the immortality of the soul.
The power which transforms corporeality into immortality is
spiritual in its nature, and could only be imparted to the earthly
tree or its fruit through the word of God, through a special
operation of the Spirit of God, an operation which we can only
picture to ourselves as sacramental in its character, rendering
earthly elements the receptacles and vehicles of celestial powers.
God had given such a sacramental nature and significance to the
two trees in the midst of the garden, that their fruit could and
would produce supersensual, mental, and spiritual effects upon
Ob THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
the nature of the first human pair. The tree of life was to im-
part the power of transformation into eternal life. The tree of
knowledge was to lead man to the knowledge of good and evil ;
and, according to the divine intention, this was to be attained
through his not eating of its fruit. This end was to be accom-
plished, not only by his discerning in the limit imposed by the
prohibition the difference between that which accorded with the
will of God and that which opposed it, but also by his coming
eventually, through obedience to the prohibition, to recognise
the fact that all that is opposed to the will of God is an evil to
be avoided, and, through voluntary resistance to such evil, to the
full development of the freedom of choice originally imparted
to him into the actual freedom of a deliberate and self-conscious
choice of good. By obedience to the divine will he would have
attained to a godlike knowledge of good and evil, i.e. to one in
accordance with his own likeness to God. He would have de-
tected the evil in the approaching tempter; but instead of yield-
ing to it, he would have resisted it, and thus have made good
his own property acquired with consciousness and of his own
free-will, and in this way by proper self-determination would
gradually have advanced to the possession of the truest liberty.
But as he failed to keep this divinely appointed way, and ate
the forbidden fruit in opposition to the command of God, the
power imparted by God to the fruit was manifested in a dif-
ferent way. He learned the difference between good and evil
from his own guilty experience, and by receiving the evil into
his own soul, fell a victim to the threatened death. Thus
through his own fault the tree, which should have helped him
to attain true freedom, brought nothing but the sham liberty of
sin, and with it death, and that without any demoniacal power
of destruction being conjured into the tree itself, or any fatal
poison being hidden in its fruit.
Vers. 18-25. Creation of the Woman. — As the creation
of man is introduced in chap. i. 20, 27, with a divine decree, so
here that of the woman is preceded by the divine declaration,
It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make hint
fa?J? ^\V.i a help of his like: " i.e. a helping being, in which, as
soon as he sees it, he may recognise himself " (Delitesch). Of such
a help the man stood in need, in order that he might fulfil his
CHAP. II. 18-25. 87
calling, not only to perpetuate and multiply his race, but to cul-
tivate and govern the earth. To indicate this, the general word
nJ33 "i?V is chosen, in which there is an allusion to the relation
of the sexes. To call out this want, God brought the larger
quadrupeds and birds to the man, " to see what he would call
them (fa lit. each one) ; and whatsoever the man might call every
living being should be its name.n The time when this took place
must have been the sixth day, on which, according to chap. i. 27,
the man and woman were created : and there is no difficulty in this,
since it would not have required much time to bring the animals
to Adam to see what he would call them, as the animals of
paradise are all we have to think of ; and the deep sleep into
which God caused the man to fall, till he had formed the woman
from his rib, need not have continued long. In chap. i. 27 the
creation of the woman is linked with that of the man ; but here
the order of sequence is given, because the creation of the woman
formed a chronological incident in the history of the human
race, which commences with the creation of Adam. The circum-
stance that in ver. 19 the formation of the beasts and birds is
connected with the creation of Adam by the imperf. c. l consec,
constitutes no objection to the plan of creation given in chap. i.
The arrangement may be explained on the supposition, that the
writer, who was about to describe the relation of man to the
beasts, wrent back to their creation, in the simple method of the
early Semitic historians, and placed this first instead of making
it subordinate ; so that our modern style of expressing the same
thought would be simply this : " God brought to Adam the
beasts which He had formed." * Moreover, the allusion is not
1 A striking example of this style of narrative we find in 1 Kings vii.
13. First of all, the building and completion of the temple are noticed
several times in chap, vi., and the last time in connection with the year
and month (chap. vi. 9, 14, 37, 38) ; after that, the fact is stated, that
the royal palace was thirteen years in building ; and then the writer pro-
ceeds thus : " And king Solomon sent and fetched Hiram from Tyre ....
and he came to king Solomon, and did all his work ; and made the two pil-
lars," etc. Now, if we were to understand the historical preterite with 1 cou-
sec, here, as giving the order of sequence, Solomon would be made to send
for the Tyrian artist, thirteen years after the temple was finished, to come
and prepare the pillars for the porch, and all the vessels needed for the
temple. But the writer merely expresses in Semitic style the simple
thought, that " Hiram, whom Solomon fetched from Tyre, made the ves-
sels," etc. Another instance we find in Judg. ii. 6.
88 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
to the creation of all the beasts, but simply to that of the beasts
living in the field (game and tame cattle), and of the fowls of
the air, — to beasts, therefore, which had been formed like man
from the earth, and thus stood in a closer relation to him than
water animals or reptiles. For God brought the animals to
Adam, to show him the creatures which were formed to serve
him, that He might see what he would call them. Calling
or naming presupposes acquaintance. Adam is to become
acquainted with the creatures, to learn their relation to him, and
by giving them names to prove himself their lord. God does
not order him to name them ; but by bringing the beasts He
gives him an opportunity of developing that intellectual capacity
which constitutes his superiority to the animal world. " The
man sees the animals, and thinks of what they are and how they
look ; and these thoughts, in themselves already inward words,
take the form involuntarily of audible names, which he utters
to the beasts, and by which he places the impersonal creatures
in the first spiritual relation to himself, the personal being"'
(Delitzsch). Language, as W. v. Humboldt says, is " the organ
of the inner being, or rather the inner being itself as it gradually
attains to inward knowledge and expression." It is merely
thought cast into articulate sounds or words. The thoughts of
Adam with regard to the animals, to which he gave expression
in the names that he gave them, we are not to regard as the mere
results of reflection, or of abstraction from merely outward pe-
culiarities which affected the senses ; but as a deep and direct
mental insight into the nature of the animals, which penetrated
far deeper than such knowledge as is the simple result of reflect-
ing and abstracting thought. The naming of the animals, there-
fore, led to this result, that there was not found a help meet
for man. Before the creation of the woman we must regard
the man (Adam) as being " neither male, in the sense of com-
plete sexual distinction, nor androgynous as though both sexes
were combined in the one individual created at the first, but
as created in anticipation of the future, with a preponderant
tendency, a male in simple potentiality, out of which state he
passed, the moment the woman stood by his side, when the mere
potentia became an actual antithesis " (Zieglei'). — Then God
caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man (ver. 21). nOTiFlj a
deep sleep, in which all consciousness of the outer world and
CHAP. II. 18-25. 89
of one's own existence vanishes. Sleep is an essential element in
the nature of man as ordained by God, and is quite as neces-
sary for man as the interchange of day and night for all nature
besides. But this deep sleep was different from natural sleep,
and God caused it to fall upon the man by day, that He might
create the woman out of him. " Everything out of which
something new is to spring, sinks first of all into such a sleep "
(Ziegler). P-» means the side, and, as a portion of the human
body, the rib. The correctness of this meaning, which is given
by all the ancient versions, is evident from the words, " God
took one of his nij&f," which show that the man had several of
them. " And closed up flesh in the place thereof;" i.e. closed the
gap which had been made, with flesh which He put in the place
of the rib. The woman was created, not of dust of the earth, but
from a rib of Adam, because she was formed for an inseparable
unity and fellowship of life with the man, and the mode of her
creation was to lay the actual foundation for the moral ordi-
nance of marriage. As the moral idea of the unity of the human
race required that man should not be created as a genus or
plurality,1 so the moral relation of the two persons establishing
the unity of the race required that man should be created first,
and then the woman from the body of the man. By this the
priority and superiority of the man, and the dependence of the
woman upon the man, are established as an ordinance of divine
creation. This ordinance of God forms the root of that tender
1 Natural science can only demonstrate the unity of the human race,
not the descent of all men from one pair, though many naturalists question
and deny even the former, but without any warrant from anthropological
facts. For every thorough investigation leads to the conclusion arrived at
by the latest inquirer in this department, Th. Waitz, that not only are
there no facts in natural history which preclude the unity of the various
races of men, and fewer difficulties in the way of this assumption than in
that of the opposite theory of specific diversities ; but even in mental re-
spects there are no specific differences within the limits of the race. Delitzsch
has given an admirable summary of the proofs of unity. " That the races
of men," he says, " are not species of one genus, but varieties of one species,
is confirmed by the agreement in the physiological and pathological pheno-
mena in them all, by the similarity in the anatomical structure, in the fun-
damental powers and traits of the mind, in the limits to the duration of
life, in the normal temperature of the body and the average rate of pulsa-
tion, in the duration of pregnancy, and in the unrestricted fruitfulness of
marriages between the various races."
PENT. — VOL. I. 0
90 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
love with which the man loves the woman as himself, and by
which marriage becomes a type of the fellowship of love and life,
which exists between the Lord and His Church (Eph. vi. 32).
If the fact that the woman was formed from a rib, and not from
any other part of the man, is significant ; all that we can find in
this is, that the woman was made to stand as a helpmate by the
side of the man, not that there was any allusion to conjugal love
as founded in the heart ; for the text does not speak of the rib
as one which was next the heart. The word nJ3 is worthy of
note : from the rib of the man God builds the female, through
whom the human race is to be built up by the male (chap. xvi. 2,
xxx. 3). — Vers. 23, 24. The design of God in the creation of
the woman is perceived by Adam, as soon as he awakes, when
the woman is brought to him by God. Without a revelation
from God, he discovers in the woman bone of his bones and flesh
of his flesh." The words, " this is now (^V^n lit. this time) bone
of my bones" etc., are expressive of joyous astonishment at the
suitable helpmate, whose relation to himself he describes in the
words, " she shall be called Woman, for she is taken out of man."
n#X is well rendered by Luther, " Mannin" (a female man),
like the old Latin vira from vir. The words which follow,
" therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall
cleave unto his wife, and they shall become one flesh" are not to
be regarded as Adam's, first on account of the |3"7?, which is
always used in Genesis, with the exception of chap. xx. 6, xlii. 21,
to inti'oduce remarks of the writer, either of an archaeological
or of a historical character, and secondly, because, even if
Adam on seeing the woman had given prophetic utterance to
his perception of the mystery of marriage, he could not with
propriety have spoken of father and mother. They are the
words of Moses, written to bring out the truth embodied in the
fact recorded as a divinely appointed result, to exhibit marriage
as the deepest corporeal and spiritual unity of man and woman,
and to hold up monogamy before the eyes of the people of Israel
as the form of marriage ordained by God. But as the words of
Moses, they are the utterance of divine revelation ; and Christ
could quote them, therefore, as the word of God (Matt. xix. 5).
By the leaving of father and mother, which applies to the woman
as well as to the man, the conjugal union is shown to be a spiritual
oneness, a vital communion of heart as well as of body, in which
CHAP. III. 91
it finds its consummation. This union is of a totally different
nature from that of parents and children ; hence marriage be-
tween parents and children is entirely opposed to the ordinance
of God. Marriage itself, notwithstanding the fact that it de-
mands the leaving of father and mother, is a holy appointment
of God ; hence celibacy is not a higher or holier state, and the
relation of the sexes for a pure and holy man is a pure and
holy relation. This is shown in ver. 25 : " They were both
naked (D^ny, with dagesh in the ?o, is an abbreviated form of
D^TJ? iii. 7, from -njj to strip), the man and his wife, and were not
ashamed? Their bodies were sanctified by the spirit, which
animated them. Shame entered first with sin, which destroyed
the normal relation of the spirit to the body, exciting tenden-
cies and lusts which warred against the soul, and turning the
sacred ordinance of God into sensual impulses and the lust of
the flesh.
THE FALL. — CHAP. III.
The man, whom God had appointed lord of the earth and its
inhabitants, was endowed with everything requisite for the de-
velopment of his nature and the fulfilment of his destiny. In
the fruit of the trees of the garden he had food for the susten-
ance of his life ; in the care of the garden itself, a field of labour
for the exercise of his physical strength ; in the animal and vege-
table kingdom, a capacious region for the expansion of his
intellect ; in the tree of knowledge, a positive law for the train-
ing of his moral nature ; and in the woman associated with him,
a suitable companion and help. In such circumstances as these
he might have developed both his physical and spiritual nature
in accordance with the will of God. But a tempter approached
him from the midst of the animal world, and he yielded to the
temptation to break the command of God. The serpent is said
to have been the tempter. But to any one who reads the narra-
tive carefully in connection with the previous history of the
creation, and bears in mind that man is there described as exalted
far above all the rest of the animal world, not only by the fact
of his having been created in the image of God and invested
with dominion over all the creatures of the earth, but also because
God breathed into him the breath of life, and no help meet for
92 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
him was found among the beasts of the field, and also that this
superiority was manifest in the gift of speech, which enabled
him to give names to all the rest — a thing which they, as speech-
less, were unable to perform, — it must be at once apparent that
it was not from the serpent, as a sagacious and crafty animal,
that the temptation proceeded, but that the serpent was simply
the tool of that evil spirit, who is met with in the further course
of the world's history under the name of Satan (the opponent),
or the Devil (o 8ta/3oA,o?, the slanderer or accuser).1 When
the serpent, therefore, is introduced as speaking, and that just as
if it had been entrusted with the thoughts of God Himself, the
speaking must have emanated, not from the serpent, but from a
superior spirit, which had taken possession of the serpent for the
sake of seducing man. This fact, indeed, is not distinctly stated
in the canonical books of the Old Testament ; but that is simply
for the same educational reason which led Moses to transcribe
the account exactly as it had been handed down, in the pure
objective form of an outward and visible occurrence, and with-
out any allusion to the causality which underlay the external
phenomenon, viz. not so much to oppose the tendency of con-
temporaries to heathen superstition and habits of intercourse
with the kingdom of demons, as to avoid encouraging the dispo-
sition to transfer the blame to the evil spirit which tempted man,
and thus reduce sin to a mere act of weakness. But we find the
fact distinctly alluded to in the book of Wisdom ii. 24 ; and not
only is it constantly noticed in the rabbinical writings, where
the prince of the evil spirits is called the old serpent, or the ser-
pent, with evident reference to this account, but it was introduced
at a very early period into Parsism also. It is also attested by
Christ and His apostles (John viii. 44; 2 Cor. xi. 3 and 14;
Rom. xvi. 20 ; Rev. xii. 9, xx. 2), and confirmed by the tempta-
1 There was a falL, therefore, in the higher spiritual world before the fall
of man ; and this is not only plainly taught in 2 Pet. ii. 4 and Jude 6, but
assumed in everything that the Scriptures say of Satan. But this event in
the world of spirits neither compels lis to place the fall of Satan before the
six days' work of creation, nor to assume that the-days represent long periods.
For as man did not continue long in communion with God, so the angel-
prince may have rebelled against God shortly after his creation, and not only
have involved a host of angels in his apostasy and fall, but have proceeded
immediately to tempt the men, who were created in the image of God, to
abuse their liberty by transgressing the divine command.
CHAP. III. 93
tion of our Lord. The temptation of Christ is the counterpart
of that of Adam. Christ was tempted by the devil, not only-
like Adam, but because Adam had been tempted and overcome,
in order that by overcoming the tempter He might wrest from
the devil that dominion over the whole race which he had secured
by his victory over the first human pair. The tempter approached
the Saviour openly ; to the first man he came in disguise. The
serpent is not a merely symbolical term applied to Satan ; nor
was it only the form which Satan assumed ; but it was a real
serpent, perverted by Satan to be the instrument of his tempta-
tion (vers. 1 and 14). The possibility of such a perversion, or of
the evil spirit using an animal for his own purposes, is not to be
explained merely on the ground of the supremacy of spirit over
nature, but also from the connection established in the creation
itself between heaven and earth ; and still more, from the posi-
tion originally assigned by the Creator to the spirits of heaven
in relation to the creatures of earth. The origin, force, and limits
of this relation it is impossible to determine a priori, or in any
other way than from such hints as are given in the Scriptures ;
so that there is no reasonable ground for disputing the possibility
of such an influence. Notwithstanding his self-willed opposition
to God, Satan is still a creature of God, and was created a good
spirit ; although, in proud self-exaltation, he abused the freedom
essential to the nature of a superior spirit to purposes of rebellion
against his Maker. He cannot therefore entirely shake off his
dependence upon God. And this dependence may possibly ex-
plain the reason, why he did not come " disguised as an angel of
light" to tempt our first parents to disobedience, but was obliged
to seek the instrument of his wickedness among the beasts of the
field. The trial of our first progenitors was ordained by God,
because probation was essential to their spiritual development
and self-determination. But as He did not desire that they
should be tempted to their fall, He would not suffer Satan to
tempt them in a way which should surpass their human capacity.
The tempted might therefore have resisted the tempter. If,
instead of approaching them in the form of a celestial being, in
the likeness of God, he came in that of a creature, not only far
inferior to God, but far below themselves, they could have no
excuse for allowing a mere animal to persuade them to break the
commandment of God. For they had been made to have do-
94 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
minion over the beasts, and not to take their own law from them.
Moreover, the fact that an evil spirit was approaching them in
the serpent, could hardly be concealed from them. Its speaking
alone must have suggested that ; for Adam had already become
acquainted with the nature of the beasts, and had not found one
among them resembling himself — not one, therefore, endowed
with reason and speech. The substance of the address, too, was
enough to prove that it was no good spirit which spake through
the serpent, but one at enmity with God. Hence, when they
paid attention to what he said, they were altogether without
excuse.
Vers. 1-8. " The serpent was more subtle than all the beasts
of the field, which Jehovah God had made" — The serpent is here
described not only as a beast, but also as a creature of God ; it
must therefore have been good, like everything else that He
had made. Subtilty was a natural characteristic of the serpent
(Matt. x. 16), which led the evil one to select it as his instru-
ment. Nevertheless the predicate OVW is not used here in the
good sense of fypoviybos (LXX.), prudens, but in the bad sense of
Travovpyos, callidus. For its subtilty was manifested as the craft
of a tempter to evil, in the simple fact that it was to the weaker
woman that it turned ; and cunning was also displayed in what
it said : " Hath God indeed said, Ye shall not eat of all the trees of
the garden?" *3 *]K is an interrogative expressing surprise (as in
1 Sam. xxiii. 3, 2 Sam. iv. 11) : "Is it really the fact that God
has prohibited you from eating of all the trees of the garden % "
The Hebrew may, indeed, bear the meaning, " hath God said,
ye shall not eat of every tree?" but from the context, and espe-
cially the conjunction, it is obvious that the meaning is, " ye
shall not eat of any tree." The serpent calls God by the name
of Elohim alone, and the woman does the same. In this more
general and indefinite name the personality of the living God
is obscured. To attain his end, the tempter felt it necessary to
change the living personal God into a merely general numen
divinum, and to exaggerate the prohibition, in the hope of excit-
ing in the woman's mind partly distrust of God Himself, and
partly a doubt as to the truth of His word. And his words
were listened to. Instead of turning away, the woman replied,
" We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden ; but of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said,
CHAP. III. 1-8. 95
Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." She
was aware of the prohibition, therefore, and fully understood its
meaning ; but she added, " neither shall ye touch it" and proved
by this very exaggeration that it appeared too stringent even to
her, and therefore that her love and confidence towards God
were already beginning to waver. Here was the beginning of
her fall: " for doubt is the father of sin, and skepsis the mother
of all transgression ; and in this father and this mother, all our
present knowledge has a common origin with sin" (Ziegler).
From doubt, the tempter advances to a direct denial of the truth
of the divine threat, and to a malicious suspicion of the divine
love (vers. 4, 5). " Ye will by no means die " (x^ is placed be-
fore the infinitive absolute, as in Ps. xlix. 8 and Amos ix. 8 ;
for the meaning is not, " ye will not die;" but, ye will positively
not die). " But1 God doth knoiv that in the day ye eat thereof,
your eyes will be opened? and ye ivill be like God, knowing good
and evil." That is to say, it is not because the fruit of the tree
will injure you that God has forbidden you to eat it, but from
ill-will and envy, because He does not wish you to be like Him-
self. " A truly satanic double entendre, in which a certain agree-
ment between truth and untruth is secured ! " By eating the
fruit, man did obtain the knowledge of good and evil, and in this
respect became like God (vers. 7 and 22). This was the truth
which covered the falsehood " ye shall not die," and turned the
whole statement into a lie, exhibiting its author as the father of
lies, who abides not in the truth (John viii. 44). For the know-
ledge of good and evil, which man obtains by going into evil, is
as far removed from the true likeness of God, which he would
have attained by avoiding it, as the imaginary liberty of a sinner,
which leads into bondage to sin and ends in death, is from the
true liberty of a life of fellowship with God. — Ver. 6. The
illusive hope of being like God excited a longing for the for-
bidden fruit. " The woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was a pleasure to the eyes, and to be desired to make
one tcise P^l1 signifies to gain or show discernment or insight) ;
and she took of its fruit and ate, and gave to her husband by her
(who was present), and he did eat." As distrust of God's com-
1 13 used to establish a denial.
2 inpQ31 perfect c. 1 consec. See Gesenius, § 126, Note 1.
06 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
mand leads to a disregard of it, so the longing for a false inde-
pendence excites a desire for the seeming good that has been
prohibited ; and this desire is fostered by the senses, until it
brings forth sin. Doubt, unbelief, and pride were the roots of
the sin of our first parents, as they have been of all the sins of
their posterity. The more trifling the object of their sin seems
to have been, the greater and more difficult does the sin itself
appear ; especially when we consider that the first men " stood
in a more direct relation to God, their Creator, than any other
man has ever done, that their hearts were pure, their discern-
ment clear, their intercourse with God direct, that they were
surrounded by gifts just bestowed by Him, and could not excuse
themselves on the ground of any misunderstanding of the divine
prohibition, which threatened them with the loss of life in the
event of disobedience " (Delitzsch). Yet not only did the woman
yield to the seductive wiles of the serpent, but even the man
allowed himself to be tempted by the woman. — Vers. 7, 8.
" Then the eyes of them both were opened" (as the serpent had
foretold : but what did they see ?), " and they knew that they were
valced." They had lost " that blessed blindness, the ignorance
of innocence, which knows nothing of nakedness" (Ziegler).
The discovery of their nakedness excited shame, which they
sought to conceal by an outward covering. " They seiced Jig-
leaves together, and made themselves aprons? The word ""DOTl
always denotes the fig-tree, not the pisang (Musa paradisiaca),
nor the Indian banana, whose leaves are twelve feet long and two
feet broad, for there would have been no necessity to sew them
together at all. niin, Trepi&fiara, are aprons, worn round the
hips. It was here that the consciousness of nakedness first
suggested the need of covering, not because the fruit had poi-
soned the fountain of human life, and through some inherent
quality had immediately corrupted the reproductive powers of
the body (as Hoffmann and Baumgarten suppose), nor because
any physical change ensued in consequence of the fall ; but
because, with the destruction of the normal connection between
soul and body through sin, the body ceased to be the pure abode
of a spirit in fellowship with God, and in the purely natural
state of the body the consciousness was produced not merely of
the distinction of the sexes, but still more of the worthlessness
of the flesh ; so that the man and woman stood ashamed in each
CHAP. III. 9-15. 9i
other's presence, and endeavoured to hide the disgrace of their
spiritual nakedness, by covering those parts of the body through
which the impurities of nature are removed. That the natural
feeling of shame, the origin of which is recorded here, had its
root, not in sensuality or any physical corruption, but in the
consciousness of guilt or shame before God, and consequently
that it was the conscience which wTas really at work, is evident
from the fact that the man and his wife hid themselves from
Jehovah God among the trees of the garden, as soon as they
heard the sound of His footsteps. njTP Tip (the voice of Jeho-
vah, ver. 8) is not the voice of God speaking or calling, but
the sound of God walking, as in 2 Sam. v. 24, 1 Kings xiv.
6, etc. — In the cool of the day (lit. in the wind of the day), i.e.
towards the evening, when a cooling wind generally blows.
The men have broken away from God, but God will not and
cannot leave them alone. He comes to them as one man to
another. This was the earliest form of divine revelation. God
conversed with the first man in a visible shape, as the Father
and Instructor of His children. He did not adopt this mode for
the first time after the fall, but employed it as far back as the
period when He brought the beasts to Adam, and gave him the
woman, to be his wife (chap. ii. 19, 22). This human mode of
intercourse between man and God is not a mere figure of speech,
but a reality, having its foundation in the nature of humanity, or
rather in the fact that man was created in the image of God, but
not in the sense supposed by Jakobi, that " God theomorphised
when creating man, and man therefore necessarily anthropomor-
phises when he thinks of God." The anthropomorphies of
God have their real foundation in the divine condescension
which culminated in the incarnation of God in Christ. They
are to be understood, however, as implying, not that corporeality,
or a bodily shape, is an essential characteristic of God, but that
God having given man a bodily shape, when He created him
in His own image, revealed Himself in a manner suited to his
bodily senses, that He might thus preserve him in living com-
munion with Himself.
Vers. 9-15. The man could not hide himself from God. "Je-
hovah God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou ?"-
Not that He was ignorant of his hiding-place, but to bring him
to a confession of his sin. And when Adam said that he had
98 TIIE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
hidden himself through fear of his nakedness, and thus sought
to hide the sin behind its consequences, his disobedience behind
the feeling of shame ; this is not to be regarded as a sign of pe-
culiar obduracy, but easily admits of a psychological explanation,
viz. that at the time he actually thought more of his nakedness
and shame than of his transgression of the divine command, and
his consciousness of the effects of his sin was keener than his
sense of the sin itself. To awaken the latter God said, " Who
told thee that thou wast naked?" and asked him whether he had
broken His command. He could not deny that he had, but
sought to excuse himself by saying, that the woman whom God
gave to be with him had given him of the tree. When the
woman was questioned, she pleaded as her excuse, that the ser-
pent had beguiled her (or rather deceived her, i^airdrrjcrev, 2 Cor.
xi. 3). In offering these excuses, neither of them denied the
fact. But the fault in both was, that they did not at once smite
upon their breasts. " It is so still ; the sinner first of all endea-
vours to throw the blame upon others as tempters, and then upon
circumstances which God has ordained." — Vers. 14, 15. The sen-
tence follows the examination, and is pronounced first of all upon
the serpent as the tempter : " Because thou hast done this, thou art
cursed before all cattle, and before every beast of the field." JO, liter-
ally out of the beasts, separate from them (Deut. xiv. 2 ; Judg. v.
24), is not a comparative signifying more than, nor does it mean
by ; for the curse did not proceed from the beasts, but from God,
and was not pronounced upon all the beasts, but upon the serpent
alone. The ktlcus, it is true, including the whole animal crea-
tion, has been " made subject to vanity" and " the bondage of
corruption," in consequence of the sin of man (Rom. viii. 20, 21);
yet this subjection is not to be regarded as the effect of the
curse, which was pronounced upon the serpent, having fallen
upon the whole animal world, but as the consequence of death
passing from man into the rest of the creation, and thoroughly
pervading the whole. The creation was drawn into the fall of
man, and compelled to share its consequences, because the whole
of the irrational creation was made for man, and made subject
to him as its head ; consequently the ground was cursed for
man's sake, but not the animal world for the serpent's sake, or
even along with the serpent. The curse fell upon the serpent
for having tempted the woman, according to the same law by
CHAP. III. 9-15. 99
which not only a beast which had injured a man was ordered to
be put to death (chap. ix. 5 ; Ex. xxi. 28, 29), but any beast
which had been the instrument of an unnatural crime was to be
slain along with the man (Lev. xx. 15, 16); not as though the
beast were an accountable creature, but in consequence of its
having been made subject to man, not to injure his body or his
life, or to be the instrument of his sin, but to subserve the great
purpose of his life. " Just as a loving father," as Chrysostom
says, " when punishing the murderer of his son, might snap in
tAvo the sword or dagger with which the murder had been com-
mitted." The proof, therefore, that the serpent was merely the
instrument of an evil spirit, does not lie in the punishment itself,
but in the manner in which the sentence was pronounced. When
God addressed the animal, and pronounced a curse upon it, this
presupposed that the curse had regard not so much to the irra-
tional beast as to the spiritual tempter, and that the punishment
which fell upon the serpent was merely a symbol of his own.
The punishment of the serpent corresponded to the crime. It
had exalted itself above the man ; therefore upon its belly it
should go, and dust it should eat all the days of its life. If these
words are not to be robbed of their entire meaning, they cannot
be understood in any other way than as denoting that the form
and movements of the serpent were altered, and that its present
repulsive shape is the effect of the curse pronounced upon it,
though we cannot form any accurate idea of its original appear-
ance. Going upon the belly (= creeping, Lev. xi. 42) was a
mark of the deepest degradation ; also the eating of dust, which
is not to be understood as meaning that dust was to be its only
food, but that while crawling in the dust it would also swallow
dust (cf. Micah vii. 17 ; Isa. xlix. 23). Although this punish-
ment fell literally upon the serpent, it also affected the tempter
in a figurative or symbolical sense. He became the object of
the utmost contempt and abhorrence ; and the serpent still keeps
the revolting image of Satan perpetually before the eye. This
degradation was to be perpetual. " While all the rest of crea-
tion shall be delivered from the fate into which the fall has
plunged it, according to Isa. lxv. 25, the instrument of man's
temptation is to remain sentenced to perpetual degradation in
fulfilment of the sentence, ' all the days of thy life,' and thus to
prefigure the fate of the real tempter, for whom there is no
100 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
deliverance" (Flengstenberg, Christo-logy i. 15). — The presump-
tion of the tempter was punished with the deepest degradation ;
and in like manner his sympathy with the woman was to be
turned into eternal hostility (ver. 15) God established perpe-
tual enmity, not only between the serpent and the woman, but
also between the serpent's and the woman's seed, i.e. between the
human and the serpent race. The seed of the woman would
crush the serpent's head, and the serpent crush the heel of the
woman's seed. The meaning, terere, conterere, is thoroughly
established by the Chald., Syr., and Rabb. authorities, and we
have therefore retained it, in harmony with the word avvrpifieiv
in Rom. xvi. 20, and because it accords better and more easily
with all the other passages in which the word occurs, than the
rendering inldare, to regard with enmity, which is obtained from
the combination of ^ with *1KC\ The verb is construed with a
double accusative, the second giving greater precision to the first
(vid. Ges. § 139, note, an&Ewald, § 281). The same word is used
in connection with both head and heel, to show that on both
sides the intention is to destroy the opponent ; at the same time,
the expressions head and heel denote a majus and minus, or, as
Calvin says, superius et inferius. This contrast arises from the
nature of the foes. The serpent can only seize the heel of the
man, who walks upright ; whereas the man can crush the head
of the serpent, that crawls in the dust. But this difference is
itself the result of the curse pronounced upon the serpent, and
its crawling in the dust is a sign that it will be defeated in its
conflict with man. However pernicious may be the bite of a
serpent in the heel when the poison circulates throughout the
body (chap. xlix. 17), it is not immediately fatal and utterly
incurable, like the crushing of a serpent's head.
But even in this sentence there is an unmistakeable allusion
to the evil and hostile being concealed behind the serpent. That
the human race should triumph over the serpent, was a neces-
sary consequence of the original subjection of the animals to
man. When, therefore, God not merely confines the serpent
within the limits assigned to the animals, but puts enmity
between it and the woman, this in itself points to a higher,
spiritual power, which may oppose and attack the human race
through the serpent, but will eventually be overcome. Observe,
too, that although in the first clause the seed of the serpent is
CHAP. II. 9-15. 101
opposed to the seed of the woman, in the second it is not over
the seed of the serpent but over the serpent itself that the
victory is said to be gained. It, i.e. the seed of the woman,
will crush thy head, and thou (not thy seed) wilt crush its heel.
Thus the seed of the serpent is hidden behind the unity of the
serpent, or rather of the foe who, through the serpent, has done
such injury to man. This foe is Satan, who incessantly opposes i
the seed of the woman and bruises its heel, but is eventually to
be trodden under its feet. It does not follow from this, how- •
ever, apart from other considerations, that by the seed of the
woman we are to understand one solitary person, one individual
only. As the woman is the mother of all living (ver. 20), her
seed, to which the victory over the serpent and its seed is pro-
mised, must be the human race. But if a direct and exclusive
reference to Christ appears to be exegetically untenable, the
allusion in the word to Christ is^by no means precluded in con-
sequence. In itself the idea of JHT, the seed, is an indefinite one,
since the posterity of a man may consist of a whole tribe or of
one son only (iv. 25, xxi. 12, 13), and on the other hand, an
entire tribe may be reduced to one single descendant and be-
come extinct in him. The question, therefore, who is to be /
understood by the " seed " which is to crush the serpent's head,
can only be answered from the history of the human race. But
a point of much greater importance comes into consideration
here. Against the natural serpent the conflict may be carried
on by the whole human race, by all who are born of woman,
but not against Satan. As he is a foe who can only be met
with spiritual weapons, none can encounter him successfully but
such as possess and make use of spiritual arms. Hence the idea
of the " seed " is modified by the nature of the foe. If we look
at the natural development of the human race, Eve bore three
sons, but only one of them, viz. Seth, was really the seed by
whom the human family was preserved through the flood and
perpetuated in Noah: so, again, of the three sons of Noah, Shern,
the blessed of Jehovah, from whom Abraham descended, was
the only one in whose seed all nations were to be blessed, and
that not through Ishmael, but through Isaac alone. Through
these constantly repeated acts of divine selection, which were
not arbitrary exclusions, but were rendered necessary by differ-
ences in the spiritual condition of the individuals concerned, the
102 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
"seed," to which the victory over Satan was promised, was
spiritually or ethically determined, and ceased to be co-extensive
with physical descent. This spiritual seed culminated in Christ,
in whom the Adamitic family terminated, henceforward to be
renewed by Christ as the second Adam, and restored by Him
to its original exaltation and likeness to God. In this sense
Christ is the seed of the woman, who tramples Satan under His
feet, not as an individual, but as the head both of the posterity
of the woman which kept the promise and maintained the con-
flict with the old serpent before His advent, and also of all those
who are gathered out of all nations, are united to Him by faith,
and formed into one body of which He is the head (Rom. xvi.
20). On the other hand, all who have not regarded and pre-
served the promise, have fallen into the power of the old serpent,
and are to be regarded as the seed of the serpent, whose head
will be trodden under foot (Matt, xxiii. 33 ; John viii. 44 ; 1
John iii. 8). If then the promise culminates in Christ, the fact
that the victory over the serpent is promised to the posterity of
the woman, not of the man, acquires this deeper significance,
that as it was through the woman that the craft of the devil
brought sin and death into the world, so it is also through the
woman that the grace of God will give to the fallen human race
the conqueror of sin, of death, and of the devil. And even if
the words had reference first of all to the fact that the woman
had been led astray by the serpent, yet in the fact that the
destroyer of the serpent was born of a woman (without a human
father) they were fulfilled in a way which showed that the pro-
mise must have proceeded from that Being, who secured its
fulfilment not only in its essential force, but even in its ap-
parently casual form.
Vers. 16-19. It was not till the prospect of victory had been
presented, that a sentence of punishment was pronounced upon
both the man and the woman on account of their sin. The
woman, who had broken the divine command for the sake of
earthly enjoyment, was punished in consequence with the
sorrows and pains of pregnancy and childbirth. " / will greatly
multiply (n3"?n is the inf. abs. for nznn, which had become an
adverb: vid. Ewald, § 240c, as in chap. xvi. 10 and xxii. 17)
thy sorrow and thy pregnancy : in sorrow thou shaft bring forth
children.'''1 As the increase of conceptions, regarded as the ful-
CHAP. III. 17-19. 103
filment of the blessing to " be fruitful and multiply " (i. 28),
could be no punishment, ^[}] must be understood as in apposi-
tion to ^l?.ta^y thy sorrow (i.e. the sorrows peculiar to a woman's
life), and indeed (or more especially) thy pregnancy (i.e. the
sorrows attendant upon that condition). The sentence is not
rendered more lucid by the assumption of a hendiadys. " That
the woman should bear children was the original will of God ;
but it was a punishment that henceforth she was to bear them
in sorrow, i.e. with pains which threatened her own life as well
as that of the child " (Delitzsch). The punishment consisted in
an enfeebling of nature, in consequence of sin, which disturbed
the normal relation between body and soul. — The woman had
also broken through her divinely appointed subordination to
the man ; she had not only emancipated herself from the man
to listen to the serpent, but had led the man into sin. For that,
she was punished with a desire bordering upon disease (njWPl
from p:n»? to run, to have a violent craving for a thing), and
with subjection to the man. "And he shall rule over thee."
Created for the man, the woman was made subordinate to him
from the very first ; but the supremacy of the man was not in-
tended to become a despotic rule, crushing the woman into a
slave, which has been the rule in ancient and modern Heathenism,
and even in Mahometanism also, — a rule which was first softened
by the sin-destroying grace of the Gospel, and changed into a
form more in harmony with the original relation, viz. that of a
rule on the one hand, and subordination on the other, which
have their roots in mutual esteem and love.
Vers. 17-19. "And unto Adam:" the noun is here used for
the first time as a proper name without the article. In chap,
i. 26 and ii. 5, 20, the noun is appellative, and there are sub-
stantial reasons for the omission of the article. The sentence
upon Adam includes a twofold punishment : first the cursing of
the ground, and secondly death, which affects the woman as
well, on account of their common guilt. By listening to his
wife, when deceived by the serpent, Adam had repudiated his
superiority to the rest of creation. As a punishment, therefore,
nature would henceforth offer resistance to his will. By break-
ing the divine command, he had set himself above his Maker ;
death would therefore show him the worthlessness of his own
nature. " Cursed be the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shall
104 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES
thou eat it (the ground by synecdoche for its produce, as in Isa.
i. 7) all the days of thy life : thorns and thistles shall it bring
forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field." The curse
pronounced on man's account upon the soil created for him,
consisted in the fact, that the earth no longer yielded spon-
taneously the fruits requisite for his maintenance, but the man
was obliged to force out the necessaries of life by labour and
strenuous exertion. The herb of the field is in contrast with
the trees of the garden, and sorrow with the easy dressing of
the garden. We are not to understand, however, that because
man failed to guard the good creation of God from the invasion
of the evil one, a host of demoniacal powers forced their way
into the material world to lay it waste and offer resistance to
man ; but because man himself had fallen into the power of the
evil one, therefore God cursed the earth, not merely withdraw-
ing the divine powers of life which pervaded Eden, but chang-
ing its relation to man. As Luther says, " primum in eo, quod
ilia bona non fert quo? tulisset, si homo non esset lapsus, deinde
in eo quoque, quod multa noxia fert quce non tulisset, sicut sunt
infelix lolium, steriles avence, zizania, urticos, spince, tribuli, adde
venena, noxias bestiolas, et si qua sunt alia hujus generis? But
the curse reached much further, and the writer has merely
noticed the most obvious aspect.1 The disturbance and distor-
tion of the original harmony of body and soul, which sin intro-
duced into the nature of man, and by which the flesh gained
the mastery over the spirit, and the body, instead of being more
and more transformed into the life of the spirit, became a prey
1 "Non omnia incommoda ennmerat Moses, quibus se homo per peccatum
implicuit : constat enim ex eodem prodiisse fonte omnes prsesentis vitx terumnas,
quas experientia innumeras esse ostendit. Aeris intemperies, gelu, tonitrua,
pluvise intempestivse, uredo, grandincs et quicquid inordinatum est in mundo,
peccati sunt fructus. Nee alia morborum prima est causa: idque poelicis
fabulis celehratumjv.it: hand dubie quod per manus a patribus traditum esset.
Unde Mud Horatii:
Post ignem xtherea domo
Subductum, macies et nova fehrium
Terris incubirit cohors :
Semotique prius tarda necessitas
Lethi corriputt gradum.
Sed Moses qui brcvitati studet, suo more pro communi vxdgi captu attingere
rontentus fuit quod magis apparuit: ut sub exemplo uno discamus, hontinis vitio
inversum fuisse totum nalurse ordinem.'" — Calvin.
CHAP. III. 17-19. 105
to death, spread over the whole material world ; so that every-
where on earth there were to be seen wild and rugged wastes,
desolation and ruin, death and corruption, or jxarratoTr}^ and
$6opd (Rom. viii. 20, 21). Everything injurious to man in the
organic, vegetable and animal creation, is the effect of the curse
pronounced upon the earth for Adam's sin, however little we
may be able to explain the manner in which the curse was
carried into effect ; since our view of the causal connection
between sin and evil even in human life is very imperfect, and
the connection between spirit and matter in nature generally is
altogether unknown. In this causal link between sin and the
evils in the world, the wrath of God on account of sin was
revealed ; since, as soon as the creation (iracra rj ktIols, Rom. viii.
22) had been wrested through man from its vital connection
with its Maker, He gave it up to its own ungodly nature, so
that whilst, on the one hand, it has been abused by man for the
gratification of his own sinful lusts and desires, on the other, it
has turned against man, and consequently many things in the
world and nature, which in themselves and without sin would
have been good for him, or at all events harmless, have become
poisonous and destructive since his fall. For in the sweat of
his face man is to eat his bread (OH? the bread-corn which
springs from the earth, as in Job xxviii. 5 ; Psa. civ. 14) until
he return to the ground. Formed out of the dust, he shall re-
turn to dust again. This was the fulfilment of the threat, "In
the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," which began
to take effect immediately after the breach of the divine com-
mand ; for not only did man then become mortal, but he also
actually came under the power of death, received into his nature
the germ of death, the maturity of which produced its eventual
dissolution into dust. The reason why the life of the man did
not come to an end immediately after the eating of the for-
bidden fruit, was not that "the woman had been created be-
tween the threat and the fall, and consequently the fountain
of human life had been divided, the life originally concentrated
in one Adam shared between man and woman, by which the
destructive influence of the fruit was modified or weakened "
(v. Hoffmann), but that the mercy and long-suffering of God
afforded space for repentance, and so controlled and ordered the
sin of men and the punishment of sin, as to render them sub-
PENT. — VOL. I. H
106 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
servient to the accomplishment of His original purpose and the
glorification of His name.
Vers. 20-24. As justice and mercy were combined in the
divine sentence ; justice in the fact that God cursed the tempter
alone, and only punished the tempted with labour and mortality,
mercy in the promise of eventual triumph over the serpent : so
God also displayed His mercy to the fallen, before carrying
the sentence into effect. It was through the power of divine
grace that Adam believed the promise with regard to the
woman's seed, and manifested his faith in the name which he
gave to his wife. Hjn Eve, an old form of n>n? signifying life
(£&)//, LXX.), or life-spring, is a substantive, and not a feminine
adjective meaning " the living one," nor an abbreviated form of
HjnOj from njn = Pl»n (xix. 32, 34), the life-receiving one. This
name was given by Adam to his wife, " because" as the writer
explains with the historical fulfilment before his mind, " she be-
came the mother of all living" i.e. because the continuance and
life of his race were guaranteed to the man through the woman.
God also displayed His mercy by clothing the two with coats
of skin, i.e. the skins of beasts. The words, " God made
coats," are not to be interpreted with such bare literality, as that
God sewed the coats with His own fingers ; they merely affirm
" that man's first clothing was the work of God, who gave the
necessary directions and ability" (Delitcsch). By this clothing,
God imparted to the feeling of shame the visible sign of an
awakened conscience, and to the consequent necessity for a cover-
ing to the bodily nakedness, the higher work of a suitable disci-
pline for the sinner. By selecting the skins of beasts for the
clothing of the first men, and therefore causing the death or
slaughter of beasts for that purpose, He showed them how they
might use the sovereignty they possessed over the animals for
their own good, and even sacrifice animal life for the preservation
of human ; so that this act of God laid the foundation for the
sacrifices, even if the first clothing did not prefigure our ulti-
mate "clothing upon" (2 Cor. v. 4), nor the coats of skins the
robe of righteousness. — Vers. 22, 23. Clothed in this sign of
mercy, the man was driven out of paradise, to bear the punish-
ment of his sin. The words of Jehovah, " The man is become as
one of Us, to know good and evil" contain no irony, as though
man had exalted himself to a position of autonomy resembling
CHAP. III. 20-24. 107
that of God ; for "irony at the expense of a wretched tempted
soul might well befit Satan, but not the Lord." Likeness to
God is predicated only with regard to the knowledge of good and
evil, in which the man really had become like God. In order
that, after the germ of death had penetrated into his nature
along with sin, he might not "take also of the tree of life, and eat
and live for ever ('■n contracted from "n = rvn, as in chap. v. 5 ;
1 Sam. xx. 31), God sent him forth from the garden of Eden."
With ^nnpE^ (sent him forth) the narrative passes over from the
words to the actions of God. From the D3 {also) it follows that
the man had not yet eaten of the tree of life. Had he con-
tinued in fellowship with God by obedience to the command
of God, he might have eaten of it, for he was created for
eternal life. But after he had fallen through sin into the power
of death, the fruit which produced immortality could only do
him harm. For immortality in a state of sin is not the £0077
aloovios, which God designed for man, but endless misery, which
the Scriptures call "the second death" (Rev. ii. 11, xx. 6, 14,
xxi. 8). The expulsion from paradise, therefore, was a punish-
ment inflicted for man's good, intended, while exposing him to
temporal death, to preserve him from eternal death. To keep
the approach to the tree of life, " God caused cherubim to dwell
(to encamp) at the east (on the eastern side) of the garden, and
the (i.e. with the) flame of the sword turning to and fro" (naannp,
moving rapidly). The word 3V13 cherub has no suitable etymo-
logy in the Semitic, but is unquestionably derived from the same
root as the Greek ypvyjr or ypvires, and has been handed down
from the forefathers of our race, though the primary meaning
can no longer be discovered. The cherubim, however, are crea-
tures of a higher world, which are represented as surrounding
the throne of God, both in the visions of Ezekiel (i. 22 sqq.,
x. 1) and the Revelation of John (chap. iv. 6) ; not, however, as
throne-bearers or throne-holders, or as forming the chariot of
the throne, but as occupying the highest place as living beings
(ni»n? £ooa) in the realm of spirits, standing by the side of God
as the heavenly King when He comes to judgment, and proclaim-
ing the majesty of the Judge of the world. In this character
God stationed them on the eastern side of paradise, not " to in-
habit the garden as the temporary representatives of man," but
" to keep the way of the tree of life," i.e. to render it impossible
108 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
for man to return to paradise, and eat of the tree of life. Hence
there appeared by their side the flame of a sword, apparently in
constant motion, cutting hither and thither, representing the de-
vouring fire of the divine wrath, and showing the cherubim to
be ministers of judgment. With the expulsion of man from
the garden of Eden, paradise itself vanished from the earth.
God did not withdraw from the tree of life its supernatural
power, nor did He destroy the garden before their eyes, but
simply prevented their return, to show that it should be pre-
served until the time of the end, when sin should be rooted out
by the judgment, and death abolished by the Conqueror of the
serpent (1 Cor. xv. 26), and when upon the new earth the tree
of life should flourish again in the heavenly Jerusalem, and bear
fruit for the redeemed (Rev. xx. and xxi.).
THE SONS OF THE FIRST MAN. — CHAP. IV.
Vers. 1-8. The propagation of the human race did not com-
mence till after the expulsion from paradise. Generation in man
is an act of personal free-will, not a blind impulse of nature, and
rests upon a moral self-determination. It flows from the divine
institution of marriage, and is therefore knowing (JTP) the wife.
— At the birth of the first son Eve exclaimed with joy, " I have
gotten (Wip) a man with Jehovah ;" wherefore the child received
the name Cain (?P from |lp=rnpj KTaaOai). So far as the gram-
mar is concerned, the expression nirVTiH might be rendered, as
in apposition to Ufa, " a man, the Lord" (Luther), but the sense
would not allow it. For even if we could suppose the faith
of Eve in the promised conqueror of the serpent to have been
sufficiently alive for this, the promise of God had not given her
the slightest reason to expect that the promised seed would be of
divine nature, and might be Jehovah, so as to lead her to believe
that she had given birth to Jehovah now. ns is a preposition
in the sense of helpful association, as in chap. xxi. 20, xxxix. 2,
21, etc. That she sees in the birth of this son the commence-
ment of the fulfilment of the promise, and thankfully acknow
ledges the divine help in this display of mercy, is evident from
the name Jehovah, the God of salvation. The use of this name
is significant. Although it cannot be supposed that Eve herself
knew and uttered this name, since it was not till a later period
CHAP. IV. 1-8. 109
that it was made known to man, and it really belongs to the
Hebrew, which was not formed till after the division of tongues,
yet it expresses the feeling of Eve on receiving this proof of the
gracious help of God. — Ver. 2. But her joy was soon overcome
by the discovery of the vanity. of this earthly life. This is ex-
pressed in the name Abel, which was given to the second son
(/^[}, in pause ?3n, i.e. nothingness, vanity), whether it indicated
generally a feeling of sorrow on account of his weakness, or was
a prophetic presentiment of his untimely death. The occupation
of the sons is noticed on account of what follows. "Abel ivas a
keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground." Adam had,
no doubt, already commenced both occupations, and the sons
selected each a different department. God Himself had pointed
out both to Adam, — the tilling of the ground by the employment
assigned him in Eden, which had to be changed into agriculture
after . his expulsion ; and the keeping of cattle in the clothing
that He gave him (iii. 21). Moreover, agriculture can never be
entirely separated from the rearing of cattle ; for a man not only
requires food, but clothing, which is procured directly from the
hides and wool of tame animals. In addition to this, sheep do
not thrive without human protection and care, and therefore
were probably associated with man from the very first. The
different occupations of the brothers, therefore, are not to be
regarded as a proof of the difference in their dispositions. This
comes out first in the sacrifice, which they offered after a time
to God, each one from the produce of his vocation. — " In process
of time" (lit. at the end of days, i.e. after a considerable lapse of
time : for this use of D1^ cf. chap. xl. 4 ; Num. ix. 2) Cain
brought of the fruit of the ground a gift (p^P) to the Lord; and
Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and indeed (vav
in an explanatory sense, vid. Ges. § 155, 1) of their fat," i.e. the
fattest of the firstlings, and not merely the first good one that
came to hand. D^^n are not ;_ the fat portions of the animal s^jas in
the Levitical law of sacrifice. This is evident from the fact, that
the sacrifice w^,s_not connected with a sacrificial meal, and ani-
mal food was not eaten at this time. That the usage of the
Mosaic law cannot determine the meaning of this passage, is evi-/
dent from the word mvnchah, which is applied in Leviticus to(
bloodless sacrifices only, whereas it is used here in connection
with Abel's sacrifice. " And Jehovah looked upon Abel and his
110 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
gift ; and upon Cain and his gift He did not look." The look of
Jehovah was in any case a visible sign of satisfaction. It is a
common and ancient opinion that fire consumed Abel's sacrifice,
and thus showed that it was graciously accepted. Theodotion
explains the words by ko\ eveirvpicev 6 @eo?. But whilst this
explanation has the analogy of Lev. ix. 24 and Judg. vi. 21 in
its favour, it does not suit the words, " upon Abel and his gift."
The reason for the different reception of the two offerings was
the state of mind towards God with which they were brought,
and which manifested itself in the selection of the gifts. Not,
indeed, in the fact that Abel brought a bleeding sacrifice and
Cain a bloodless one ; for this difference arose from the differ-
ence in their callings, and each necessarily took his gift from the
produce of his own occupation. It was rather in the fact that
Abel offered the fattest firstlings of his flock, the best that he
could bring ; whilst Cain only brought a portion of the fruit of
the ground, but not the first-fruits. By this choice Abel brought
ifkelova Bvalav irapa Kalv, and manifested that disposition
which is designated faith (7rt<xTi?) in Heb. xi. 4. The nature of
this disposition, however, can only be determined from the mean-
ing of the offering itself.
The sacrifices offered by Adam's sons, and that not in con-
sequence of a divine command, but from the free impulse of
their nature as determined by God, were the first sacrifices of the
human race. The origin of sacrifice, therefore, is neither to be
traced to a positive command, nor to be regarded as a human
invention. To form an accurate conception of the idea which
lies at the foundation of all sacrificial worship, we must bear in
mind that the first sacrifices were offered after the fall, and
therefore presupposed the spiritual separation of man from God,
and were designed to satisfy the need of the heart for fellowship
with God. This need existed in the case of Cain, as well as in
that of Abel ; otherwise he would have offered no sacrifice at all,
since there was no command to render it compulsory. Yet it
was not the wish for forgiveness of sin which led Adam's sons to
offer sacrifice ; for there is no mention of expiation, and the
notion that Abel, by slaughtering the animal, confessed that
he deserved death on account of sin, is transferred to this
passage from the expiatory sacrifices of the Mosaic law. The
offerings were expressive of gratitude to God, to whom they owed
CHAP. IV. 1-8. Ill
all that they had ; and were associated also with the desire to
secure the divine favour and blessing, so that they are to he
regarded not merely as thank-offerings, but as supplicatory sacri-
fices, and as propitiatory also, in the wider sense of the word. In
this the two offerings are alike. The reason why they were not
equally acceptable to God is not to be sought, as Hofmann thinks,
in the fact that Cain merely offered thanks " for the preservation
of this present life," whereas Abel offered thanks " for the for-
giveness of sins," or " for the sin-forgiving clothing received by
man from the hand of God." To take the nourishment of the
body literally and the clothing symbolically in this manner, is an
arbitrary procedure, by which the Scriptures might be made to
mean anything we chose. The reason is to be found rather in
the fact, that Abel's thanks came from the depth of his heart,
whilst Cain merely offered his to keep on good terms with God, —
a difference that was manifested in the choice of the gifts, which
each one brought from the produce of his occupation. This
choice shows clearly " that it was the pious feeling, through
which the worshipper put his heart as it were into the gift, which
made the offering acceptable to God" (Oehler) ; that the essence
of the sacrifice was not the presentation of a gift to God, but
that the offering was intended to shadow forth the dedication of
the heart to God. At the same time, the desire of the wor-
shipper, by the dedication of the best of his possessions to secure
afresh the favour of God, contained the germ of that substitu-
tionary meaning of sacrifice, which was afterwards expanded in
connection with the deepening and heightening of the feeling of
sin into a desire for forgiveness, and led to the development of
the idea of expiatory sacrifice. — On account of the preference
shown to Abel, " it burned Cain sore (the subject, ' wrath,' is
wanting, as it frequently is in the case of rnn, cf. chap, xviii. 30,
32, xxxi. 36, etc.), and his countenance fell" (an indication of his
discontent and anger: cf. Jer. hi. 12; Job xxix. 24). God
warned him of giving way to this, and directed his attention
to the cause and consequences of his wrath. " Why art thou
wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen. ?" The answer to this
is given in the further question, " 'Is there not, if thou art good,
a lifting up" (sc. of the countenance) 1 It is evident from the
context, and the antithesis of falling and lifting up (^S3 and xb':),
that D^3 must be supplied after J"IXB\ By this God gave him to
112 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
understand that his look was indicative of evil thoughts and in-
tentions ; for the lifting up of the countenance, i.e. a free, open
look, is the mark of a good conscience (Job xi. 15). " Bui if
thou art not good, sin lieth before the door, and its desire is to thee
(directed towards thee) ; but thou shoiddst rule over it." The
fern, ns^n is construed as a masculine, because, with evident
allusion to the serpent, sin is personified as a wild beast, lurking
at the door of the human heart, and eagerly desiring to devour
his soul (1 Pet. v. 8). 3^?, to make good, signifies here not
good action, the performance of good in work and deed, but
making the disposition good, i.e. directing the heart to what is
good. Cain is to rule over the sin which is greedily desiring
him, by giving up his wrath, not indeed that sin may cease to
lurk for him, but that the lurking evil foe may obtain no entrance
into his heart. There is no need to regard the sentence as in-
terrogative, "Wilt thou, indeed, be able to rule over it?" (Eicald),
nor to deny the allusion in t3 to the lurking sin, as Delitzsch
does. The words do not command the suppression of an inward
temptation, but resistance to the power of evil as pressing from
without, by hearkening to the word which God addressed to Cain
in person, and addresses to us through the Scriptures. There is
nothing said here about God appearing visibly ; but this does not
warrant us in interpreting either this or the following conversa-
tion as a simple process that took place in the heart and con-
science of Cain. It is evident from vers. 14 and 16 that God
did not withdraw His personal presence and visible intercourse
from men, as soon as He had expelled them from the garden of
Eden. " God talks to Cain as to a wilful child, and draws out
of him what is sleeping in his heart, and lurking like a wild
beast before his door. And what He did to Cain He does to
every one who will but observe his own heart, and listen to the
voice of God" (Herder). But Cain paid no heed to the divine
warning. Ver. 8. He " said to his brother A bel." What he said
is not stated. We may either supply " it," viz. what God had
just said to him, which would be grammatically admissible, since
1?K is sometimes followed by a simple accusative (xxii. 3, xliv.
16), and this accusative has to be supplied from the context (as in
Ex. xix. 25) ; or we may supply from what follows some such
expressions as " let us go into the field" as the LXX., Sam.,
Jonathan, and others have done. This is also allowable, so that
CHAP. IV. 9-15. 113
we need not imagine a gap in the text, but may explain the con-
struction as in chap. iii. 22, 23, by supposing that the writer has-
tened on to describe the carrying out of what was said, without
stopping to set down the -words themselves. This supposition is
preferable to the former, since it is psychologically most improb-
able that Cain should have related a warning to his brother which
produced so little impression upon his own mind. In the field
" Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and sleio him." Thus
the sin of Adam had grown into fratricide in his son. The
writer intentionally repeats again and again the words " his
brother," to bring clearly out the horror of the sin. Cain was
the first man who let sin reign in him ; he was " of the wicked
one" (1 John iii. 12). In him the seed of the woman had
already become the seed of the serpent ; and in his deed the real
nature of the wicked one, as " a murderer from the beginning,"
had come openly to light : so that already there had sprung up
that contrast of two distinct seeds within the human race, which
runs through the entire history of humanity.
Vers. 9-15. Defiance grows with sin, and punishment keeps
pace with guilt. Adam and Eve fear before God, and acknow-
ledge their sin ; Cain boldly denies it, and in reply to the
question, " Where is Abel thy brotherV declares, " I know not,
am I my brother s keeper?" God therefore charges him with his
crime : " What hast thou done ! voice of thy brother's blood crying
to Me from the earth." The verb "crying" refers to the "blood,"
since this is the principal word, and the voice merely expresses
the adverbial idea of "aloud," or "listen" {Eicald, § Slid). DW
(drops of blood) is sometimes used to denote natural hemorrhage
(Lev. xii. 4, 5, xx. 18) ; but is chiefly applied to blood shed un-
naturally, i.e. to murder. " Innocent blood has no voice, it may
be, that is discernible by human ears, but it has one that reaches
God, as the cry of a wicked deed demanding vengeance"
(Delitzsch). Murder is one of the sins that cry to heaven.
" Primum ostendit Deus se de factis hominum cognoscere utcunque
nullus queratur vel accuset ; deinde sibi magis charam esse homi-
num vitam quam ut sanguinem innoxium impune effundi sinat ;
tertio curam sibi piorum esse non solum quamdiu vivunt sed etiam
post mortem" (Calvin). Abel was the first of the saints, whose
blood is precious in the sight of God (Ps. cxvi. 15) ; and by
virtue of his faith, he being dead yet speaketh through his blood
114 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES
which cried unto God (Heb. xi. 4). — Vers. 11, 12. "And now
(sc. because thou hast done this) be cursed from the earth."
From : i.e. either away from the earth, driven forth so that it
shall no longer afford a quiet resting-place (Gerlach, Delitzsch,
etc.), or out of the earth, through its withdrawing its strength,
and thus securing the fulfilment of perpetual wandering (Baum-
garten, etc.). It is difficult to choose between the two ; but the
elause, " which hath opened her mouth" etc., seems rather to
favour the latter. Because the earth has been compelled to
drink innocent blood, it rebels against the murderer, and when
he tills it, withdraws its strength, so that the soil yields no pro-
duce ; just as the land of Canaan is said to have spued out the
Canaanites, on account of their abominations (Lev. xviii. 28).
In any case, the idea that " the soil, through drinking innocent
blood, became an accomplice in the sin of murder," has no bibli-
cal support, and is not confirmed by Isa. xxvi. 21 or Num. xxxv.
33. The suffering of irrational creatures through the sin of man
is very different from their participating in his sin. u A fugi-
tive and vagabond (*W1 W, i.e. banished and homeless) shalt thou
be in the earth." Cain is so affected by this curse, that his ob-
duracy is turned into despair. "My sin" he says in ver. 13, liis
greater than can be borne." PV N^'J signifies to take away and
bear sin or guilt, and is used with reference both to God and
man. God takes guilt away by forgiving it (Ex. xxxiv. 7) ;
man carries it away and bears it, by enduring its punishment
(cf. Num. v. 31). Luther, following the ancient versions, has
adopted the first meaning ; but the context sustains the second :
for Cain afterwards complains, not of the greatness of the sin,
but only of the severity of the punishment. " Behold, Thou hast
driven me out this dag from the face of the earth, and from Thy
face shall I be hid; . . . and it shall come to pass that every one
that findeth me shall slay me." The adamah, from the face of
which the curse of Jehovah had driven Cain, was Eden (cf. ver.
16), where he had carried on his agricultural pursuits, and where
God had revealed His face, i.e. His presence, to the men after
their expulsion from the garden ; so that henceforth Cain had to
wander about upon the wide world, homeless and far from the
presence of God, and was afraid lest any one who found him
might slay him. By "every one that findeth me" we are not to
understand omnis creatura, as though Cain had excited the hos-
CHAP. IV. 16-24. ' '', 115
tility of all creatures, but every man ; not in the sense, however,
of such as existed apart from the family of Adam, but such as
were aware of his crime, and knew him to be a murderer. For
Cain is evidently afraid of revenge on the part of relatives of
the slain, that is to say, of descendants of Adam, who were
either already in existence, or yet to be born. Though Adam
might not at this time have had " many grandsons and great-
grandsons," yet according to ver. 1 7 and chap. v. 4, he had un-
doubtedly other children, who might increase in number, and
sooner or later might avenge Abel's death. For, that blood shed
demands blood in return, " is a principleof equity written in the
heart of every man ; and that Cain should see the earth full of
avengers is just like a murderer, who sees avenging spirits
(^Epivvei) ready to torture him on every hand." — Yer. 15.
Although Cain expressed not penitence, but fear of punishment,
God displayed His long-suffering and gave him the promise,
" Therefore (J?^ not in the sense of £ N?, but because it was the
case, and there was reason for his complaint) whosoever slayeth
Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.^ f]i? FliT?3 is cas.
absolut. as in chap. ix. 6; and D;?n avenged, i.e. resented, punished,
as Ex. xxi. 20, 21. The mark which God put upon Cain is
not to be regarded as a mark upon his body, as the Rabbins
and others supposed, but as a certain sign which protected him
from vengeance, though of what kind it is impossible to deter-
mine. God granted him continuance of life, not because
banishment from the place of God's presence was the greatest
possible punishment, or because the preservation of the human
race required at that time that the lives of individuals should be
spared, — for God afterwards destroyed the whole human race,
with the exception of one family, — but partly because the tares
were to grow with the wheat, and sin develop itself to its utmost
extent, partly also because from the very first God determined to
take punishment into His own hands, and protect human life
from the passion and wilfulness of human vengeance.
Vers. 16-24. The family of the Cainites.—Ver. 16. The
geographical situation of the land of Nod, in the front of Eden
(n*?*]i?j see chap. ii. 14), where Cain settled after his departure
from the place or the land of the revealed presence of God (cf.
Jonah i. 3), cannot be determined. The name Nod denotes a
land of flight and banishment, in contrast with Eden, the land
116 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
o| delight, where Jehovah walked with men. There Cain knew
his wife. The text assumes it as self-evident that she accom-
panied him in his exile ; also, that she was a daughter of Adam,
and consequently a sister of Cain. The marriage of brothers
and sisters was inevitable in the case of the children of the first
men, if the human race was actually to descend from a single
pair, and may therefore be justified in the face of the Mosaic
prohibition of such marriages, on the ground that the sons and
daughters of Adam represented not merely the family but the
genus, and that it was not till after the rise of several families
that the bands of fraternal and conjugal love became distinct
from one another, and assumed fixed and mutually exclusive
forms, the violation of which is sin. (Comp. Lev. xviii.) His
son he named Ilanoch (consecration), because he regarded his
birth as a pledge of the renovation of his life. For this reason
he also gave the same name to the city which he built, inasmuch
as its erection was another phase in the development of his family.
The construction of a city by Cain will cease to surprise us, if
we consider that at the commencement of its erection, centuries
had already passed since the creation of man, and Cain's descend-
ants may by this time have increased considerably in numbers ;
also, that "VV does not necessarily presuppose a large town, but
simply an enclosed space with fortified dwellings, in contradis-
tinction to the isolated tents of shepherds ; and lastly, that the
words nab W, " he was building," merely indicate the com-
mencement and progress of the building, but not its termination.
It appears more surprising that Cain, who was to be a fugitive
and a vagabond upon the earth, should have established himself
in the land of Nod. This cannot be fully explained, either on
the ground that he carried on the pursuits of agriculture, which
lead to settled abodes, or that he strove against the curse. In
addition to both the facts referred to, there is also the circum-
stance, that the curse, " the ground shall not yield to thee her
strength," was so mollified by the grace of God, that Cain and
his descendants were enabled to obtain sufficient food in the land
of his settlement, though it was by dint of hard work and
strenuous effort ; unless, indeed, we follow Luther and under-
stand the curse, that he should be a fugitive upon the earth, as
relating to his expulsion from Eden, and his removal adincertum
locum et opus, non addita ulla vel promissione vel mandato, sicut
CHAP. IV. 16-24. 117
avis quce in libero ccelo incerta vagatur. The fact that Cain
undertook the erection of a city, is also significant. Even if we
do not regard this city as " the first foundation-stone of the
kingdom of the world, in which the spirit of the beast bears
sway," we cannot fail to detect the desire to neutralize the
curse of banishment, and create for his family a point of unity,
as a compensation for the loss of unity in fellowship with God,
as well as the inclination of the family of Cain for that which
was earthly. The powerful development of the worldly mind
and of ungodliness among the Cainites was openly displayed
in Lamech, in the sixth generation. Of the intermediate links,
the names only are given. (On the use of the passive with the
accusative of the object in the clause " to Hanoch teas born (they
bore) Irad" see Ges. § 143, 1.) Some of these names resemble
those of the Sethite genealogy, viz. Irad and Jared, Mehujael
and Mahalaleel, Methusael and Methuselah, also Cain and
Cainan ; and the names Enoch and Lamech occur in both
families. But neither the recurrence of similar names, nor even
of the same names, warrants the conclusion that the two genea-
logical tables are simply different forms of one primary legend.
For the names, though similar in sound, are very different in
meaning. Irad probably signifies the townsman, Jered, descent,
or that which has descended ; Mehujael, smitten of God, and
Mahalaleel, praise of God ; Methusael, man of prayer, and Me-
thuselah, man of the sword or of increase. The repetition of the
two names Enoch and Lamech even loses all significance, when
we consider the different places which they occupy in the re-
spective lines, and observe also that in the case of these very
names, the more precise descriptions which are given so
thoroughly establish the difference of character in the two indi-
viduals, as to preclude the possibility of their being the same,
not to mention the fact, that in the later history the same names
frequently occur in totally different families ; e.g. Korah in the
families of Levi (Ex. vi. 21) and Esau (chap, xxxvi. 5) ; Hanoch
in those of Reuben (chap. xlvi. 9) and Midian (chap. xxv. 4) ;
Kenaz in those of Judah (Num. xxxii. 12) and Esau (chap,
xxxvi. 11). The identity and similarity of names can prove
nothing more than that the two branches of the human race did
not keep entirely apart from each other ; a fact established by
their subsequently intermarrying. — Lamech took two wives, and
118 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
thus was the first to prepare the way for polygamy, by which
the ethical aspect of marriage, as ordained by God, was turned
into the lust of the eye and lust of the flesh. The names of the
women are indicative of sensual attractions : Adah, the adorned ;
and Zillali, either the shady or the tinkling. His three sons are
the authors of inventions which show how the mind and efforts
of the Cainites were directed towards the beautifying and per-
fecting of the earthly life. Jabal (probably = jeb id, produce)
became the father of such as dwelt in tents, i.e. of nomads who
lived in tents and with their flocks, getting their living by a
pastoral occupation, and possibly also introducing the use of
animal food, in disregard of the divine command (Gen. i. 29).
Jubal (sound), the father of all such as handle the harp and
pipe, i.e. the inventors of stringed and wind instruments. ~ri33 a
guitar or harp; 1W) the shepherd's reed or bagpipe. Tribal-Cain,
" hammering all kinds of cutting things (the verb is to be con-
strued as neuter) in brass and iron ; " the inventor therefore of
all kinds of edge-tools for working in metals : so that Cain, from
pi? to forge, is probably to be regarded as the surname which
Tubal received on account of his inventions. The meaning of
Tubal is obscure ; for the Persian Tupal, ivon-scoria, can throw
no light upon it, as it must be a much later word. The allusion
to the sister of Tubal-Cain is evidently to be attributed to her
name, Naamah, the lovely, or graceful, since it reflects the worldly
mind of the Cainites. In the arts, which owed their origin to
Lamech's sons, this disposition reached its culminating point ;
and it appears in the form of pride and defiant arrogance in the
song in which Lamech celebrates the inventions of Tubal-Cain
(vers. 23, 24) : "Adah and Z'dlah, hear my voice ; ye wives of
Lamech, hearken unto my speech : Men I slay for my wound, and
young men for my stripes. For sevenfold is Cain avenged, and
Lamech seven and seventy-fold." The perfect *l£jn is expressive
not of a deed accomplished, but of confident assurance (Ges. §
126, 4 ; Evvald, § 135c) ; and the suffixes in Vran and W*
are to be taken in a passive sense. The idea is this : whoever
inflicts a wound or stripe on me, whether man or youth, I will
put to death ; and for every injury done to my person, I will
take ten times more vengeance than that with which God
promised to avenge the murder of my ancestor Cain. In this
song, which contains in its rhythm, its strophic arrangement of
CHAP. IV. 25, 26. 119
the thoughts, and its poetic diction, the germ of the later poetry,
we may detect " that Titanic arrogance, of which the Bible says
that its power is its god (Hab. i. 11), and that it carries its god,
viz. its sword, in its hand (Job xii. 6) " (Delitzsch). — Accord-
ing to these accounts, the principal arts and manufactures were
invented by the Cainites, and carried out in an ungodly spirit ;
but they are not therefore to be attributed to the curse which
rested upon the family. They have their roots rather in the
mental powers with which man was endowed for the sovereignty
and subjugation of the earth, but which, like all the other powers
and tendencies of his nature, were pervaded by sin, and dese-
crated in its service. Hence these inventions have become the
common property of humanity, because they not only may pro-
mote its intended development, but are to be applied and conse-
crated to this purpose for the glory of God.
Vers. 25, 26. The character of the ungodly family of
Cainites was now fully developed in Lamech and his children.
The history, therefore, turns from them, to indicate briefly the
origin of the godly race. After Abel's death a third son was
born to Adam, to whom his mother gave the name of Seth (pv\
from rVB>, a present participle, the appointed one, the compensa-
tion) ; "/or," she said, " God hath appointed me another seed
(descendant) for Abel, because Cain slew him." The words
" because Cain slew him " are not to be regarded as an explana-
tory supplement, but as the words of Eve ; and ^ by virtue of
the previous rinn is to be understood in the sense of "3 nnn.
What Cain (human wickedness) took from her, that has Elohim '
(divine omnipotence) restored. Because of this antithesis she
calls the giver Elohim instead of Jehovah, and not because her
hopes had been sadly depressed by her painful experience in
connection with the first-born. — Ver. 26. " To Seth, to him also
(Kin Q3? intensive, vid. Ges. § 121, 3) there was bom a son, and
he called his name Enosh." C^IJK, from K>JK to be weak, faint,
frail, designates man from his frail and mortal condition (Ps.
viii. 4, xc. 3, ciii. 15, etc.). In this name, therefore, the feeling
and knowledge of human weakness and frailty were expressed
(the opposite of the pride and arrogance displayed by the
Canaanitish family) ; and this feeling led to God, to that in-
vocation of the name of Jehovah which commenced under Enos.
niiT DK>a $~\py literally to call in (or by) the name of Jehovah, is
120 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
used for a solemn calling of the name of God. When applied
to men, it denotes invocation (here and chap. xii. 8, xiii. 4, etc.);
to God, calling out or proclaiming His name (Ex. xxxiii. 19,
A-xxiv. 5). The name of God signifies in general " the whole
nature of God, by which He attests His personal presence in
ihe relation into which He has entered with man, the divine
self-manifestation, or the whole of that revealed side of the
divine nature, which is turned towards man" (Oelder). We
have here an account of the commencement of that worship of
God which consists in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, or in
the acknowledgment and celebration of the mercy and help of
Jehovah. While the family of Cainites, by the erection of a city,
and the invention and development of worldly arts and business,
were laying the foundation for the kingdom of this world ; the
family of the Sethites began, by united invocation of the name of
the God of grace, to found and to erect the kingdom of God.
II. THE HISTORY OF ADAM.
Chap, v.-vi. 8.
generations from adam to noah. — chap. v.
The origin of the human race and the general character of
its development having been thus described, all that remained
of importance to universal or sacred history, in connection with
the progress of our race in the primeval age, was to record the
order of the families (chap, v.) and the ultimate result of the
course which they pursued (chap. vi. 1-8). — First of all, we
have the genealogical table of Adam with the names of the first
ten patriarchs, who were at the head of that seed of the woman
by which the promise was preserved, viz. the posterity of the
first pair through Seth, from Adam to the flood. We have also
an account of the ages of these patriarchs before and after the
birth of those sons in whom the line was continued ; so that the
genealogy, which indicates the line of development, furnishes
at the same time a chronology of the primeval age. In the
genealogy of the Cainites no ages are given, since this family,
as being accursed by God, had no future history. On the other
hand, the family of Sethites, which acknowledged God, began
from the time of Enos to call upon the name of the Lord, and
CHAP. V.
121
was therefore preserved and sustained by God, in order that
under the training of mercy and judgment the human race
might eventually attain to the great purpose of its creation.
The genealogies of the primeval age, to quote the apt words of
M. Baumgarten, are " memorials, which bear testimony quite as
much to the faithfulness of God in fulfilling His promise, as to
the faith and patience of the fathers themselves." This testi-
mony is first placed in its true light by the numbers of the
years. The historian gives not merely the age of each patriarch
at the time of the birth of the first-born, by whom the line of
succession was continued, but the number of years that he lived
after that, and then the entire length of his life. Now if we
add together the ages at the birth of the several first-born sons,
and the hundred years between the birth of Shem and the flood,
we find that the duration of the first period in the world's
history was 1656 years. We obtain a different result, however,
from the numbers given by the LXX. and the Samaritan
version, which differ in almost every instance from the Hebrew
text, both in chap. v. and chap. xi. (from Shem to Terah), as
will appear from the following table : —
The Fathers
before the Flood. — Chap.
v.
Hebrew Text.
Samaritan Text.
Septuagint.
o a>
S is
o <u
Names.
•B a
"Sgj
.2
S3
CD
•3 a
1 2
■2
•2
o.o
cd <u
<U^- CD
CD CD
Adam, . . .
130
800
930
130
800
930
230
700
930
1
930
Seth, . . . .
105
807
912
105
807
912
205
707
912
130
1042
Enos, . . .
90
815
905
90
815
905
190
715
905
235
1140
Cainan, . .
70
840
910
70
840
910
170
740
910
325
1235
Mahalaleel,
65
830
895
65
830
895
165
730
895
395
1290
Jared, . . .
162
800
962
62
785
847
162
800
962
460
1422
Enoch, . . .
65
300
365
65
300
365
165
200
365
622
987
Methuselah,
187
782
969
67
653
720
167
(187)
802
(782)1
969
687
1656
Lamech, . .
182
595
777
53
600
653
188
565
753
874
1651
Noah, . . .
500
450
950
500
450
950
500
450
950
1056
2066
To the flood,
Total, . . .
100
1656
100
100
1307
2242
1 The numbers in brackets are the reading of the Cod. Alexandrinus of
the LXX. In the genealogical table, chap. xi. 10 sqq., the Samaritan text
is the only one which gives the whole duration of life.
PENT. — VOL. I. I
122
THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
The Fathers from the Floe
d to the call of Abram. —
Chap
xi. 10-
-26
Hebrew Text.
Samaritan Text.
Septuagint.
? ?
||
Names.
Is
5-?
y
< o
1
6
.5 5
0
<S2
•S s
SI
bo*1
<! 0
"0
1
,6
p. 2
Yearof death (
creation), Hel
Text.
Shem, . . .
100
500
600
100
500
600
100
500
600
1556
2156 i
Arphaxad, .
35
403
438
135
303
438
135
400
535
1650
2094
(430) (.565)
(K«i'l/«»),
130
330
460
Salah, . . .
*30
403
433
130
303
433
130
330
460
1691
2124
Eber, . . .
34
430
464
134
270
404
134
270
404
1721
2185
(370) (504)
Peleg, . . .
30
209
239
130
109
239
130
209
339
1755
1994
Regu, . . .
32
207
239
132
107
239
132
207
339
1785
2024
Serug, . . .
30
200
230
130
100
230
130
200
330
1817
2047
Nahor, . . .
29
119
148
79
69
148
179
125
304
1847
1995
(79) (129) (-208)
Terah, . . .
70
135
205
70
75
145
70
135
205
1876
2081
Abram, . .
•1946
2121
His call, . .
75
"75
"75
Total, . . .
365
1015
1245
2021
The principal deviations from the Hebrew in the case of the
other two texts are these : in chap. v. the Samaritan places the
birth of the first-born of Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech 100
years earliex-, whilst the Septuagint places the birth of the first-
born of all the other fathers (except Noah) 100 years later than
the Hebrew ; in chap. xi. the latter coui'se is adopted in both
texts in the case of all the fathers except Shem and Terah. In
consequence of this, the interval from Adam to the flood is
shortened in the Samaritan text by 349 years as compared with
the Hebrew, and in the Septuagint is lengthened by 5Sti (Cod.
Alex. 606). The interval from the flood to Abram is lengthened
in both texts ; in the Sam. by 650 years, in the Sept. by 880
(Cod. Alex. 780). In the latter, Cainan is interpolated between
Arphaxad and Salah, which adds 130 years, and the age of the
first-born of Nahor is placed 150 years later than in the Hebrew,
whereas in the former the difference is only 50 years. With
regard to the other differences, the reason for reducing the lives
of Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech in the Samaritan text after
the birth of their sons, was evidently to bring their deaths within
CHAP. V. 123
the time before the flood. The age of Methuselah, as given in
the Cod. Alex, of the LXX., is evidently to be accounted for on
the same ground, since, according to the numbers of the Vatican
text, Methuselah must have lived 14 years after the flood. In
the other divergences of these two texts from the Hebrew, no
definite purpose can be detected ; at the same time they are suffi-
cient to show a twofold tendency, viz. to lengthen the interval
from the flood to Abram, and to reduce the ages of the fathers
at the birth of their first-born to greater uniformity, and to take
care that the age of Adam at the birth of Seth should not be
exceeded by that of any other of the patriarchs, especially in the
time before the flood. To effect this, the Sept. adds 100 years
to the ages of all the fathers, before and after the flood, whose
sons were born before their 100th year ; the Sam., on the other
hand, simply does this in the case of the fathers who lived after
the flood, whilst it deducts 100 years from the ages of all the
fathers before the flood who begot their first-born at a later
period of their life than Adam and Seth. The age of Noah
alone is left unaltered, because there were other data connected
with the flood which prevented any arbitrary alteration of the
text. That the principal divergences of both texts from the
Hebrew are intentional changes, based upon chronological theo-
ries or cycles, is sufficiently evident from their internal character,
viz. from the improbability of the statement, that whereas the
average duration of life after the flood was about half the length
that it was before, the time of life at which the fathers begot
their first-born after the flood was as late, and, according to the
Samaritan text, generally later than it had been before. No
such intention is discernible in the numbers of the Hebrew text ;
consequently every attack upon the historical character of its
numerical statements has entirely failed, and no tenable argu-
ment can be adduced against their correctness. The objection,
that such longevity as that recorded in our chapter is incon-
ceivable according to the existing condition of human nature,
loses all its force if we consider " that all the memorials of the
old world contain evidence of gigantic power ; that the climate,
the weather, and other natural conditions, were different from
those after the flood ; that life was much more simple and uni-
form ; and that the after-effects of the condition of man in para-
dise would not be immediately exhausted" (Delitzsch). This
124 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES
longevity, moreover, necessarily contributed greatly to the in-
crease of the human race ; and the circumstance that the children
were not born till a comparatively advanced period of life, — that
is, until the corporeal and mental development of the parent was
perfectly complete, — necessarily favoured the generation of a
powerful race. From both these circumstances, however, the
development of the race was sure to be characterized by peculiar
energy in evil as well as in good ; so that whilst in the godly por-
tion of the race, not only were the traditions of the fathers trans-
mitted faithfully and without adulteration from father to son, but
family characteristics, piety, discipline, and morals took deep
root, whilst in the ungodly portion time was given for sin to de-
velop itself with mighty power in its innumerable forms.
The heading in ver. 1 runs thus : "This is the book (sepher)
of the generations (tholedoth) of Adam." On tholecloth, see chap,
ii. 4. Sepher is a writing complete in itself, whether it consist
of one sheet or several, as for instance the "bill of divorce-
ment " in Deut. xxiv. 1, 3. The addition of the clause, " in the
day that God created man" etc., is analogous to chap. ii. 4 ; the
creation being mentioned again as the starting point, because all
the development- and history of humanity was rooted there. —
Ver. 3. As Adam was created in the image of God, so did he
beget " in his own likeness, after his image ; " that is to say, he
transmitted the image of God in which he was created, not in
the purity in which it came direct from God, but in the form
given to it by his own self-determination, modified and cor-
rupted by sin. The begetting of the son by whom the line was
perpetuated (no doubt in every case the first-born), is followed
by an account of the number of years that Adam and the other
fathers lived after that, by the statement that each one begat
(other) sons and daughters, by the number of years that he
lived altogether, and lastly, by the assertion nb*l " and he died"
This apparently superfluous announcement is "intended to in-
dicate by its constant recurrence that death reigned from Adam
downwards as an unchangeable law (yid. Rom. v. 14). But
against this background of universal death, the power of life was
still more conspicuous. For the man did not die till he had
propagated life, so that in the midst of the death of individuals
the life of the race was preserved, and the hope of the seed sus-
tained, by which the author of death should be overcome." In
CHAP. v. 125
the case of one of the fathers indeed, viz. Enoch (vers. 21
sqq.), life had not only a different issue, but also a different
form. Instead of the expression " and he lived" which intro-
duces in every other instance the length of life after the birth of
the first-born, we find in the case of Enoch this statement, " he
walked with God (Elohim) ; " and instead of the expression " and
he died" the announcement, "and he was not., for God (Elohim)
took him" The phrase " walked with God," which is only
applied to Enoch and Noah (chap. vi. 9), denotes the most
confidential intercourse, the closest communion with the personal
God, a walking as it were by the side of God, who still continued
His visible intercourse with men (yid. iii. 8). It must be distin-
guished from "walking before God" (chap. xvii. 1, xxiv. 40, etc.),
and " walking after God " (Deut. xiii. 4), both which phrases
are used to indicate a pious, moral, blameless life under the law
according to the directions of the divine commands. The only
other passage in which this expression " walk with God " occurs
is Mai. ii. 6, where it denotes not the piety of the godly Israelites
generally, but the conduct of the priests, who stood in a closer re-
lation to Jehovah under the Old Testament than the rest of the
faithful, being permitted to enter the Holy Place, and hold direct
intercourse with Him there, which the rest of the people could not
do. The article in DM^n gives prominence to the personality
of Elohim, and shows that the expression cannot refer to inter
course with the spiritual world. — In Enoch, the seventh from
Adam through Seth, godliness attained its highest point; whilst
ungodliness culminated in Lamech, the seventh from Adam
through Cain, who made his sword his god. Enoch, therefore,
like Elijah, was taken away by God, and carried into the
heavenly paradise, so that he did not see (experience) death
(Heb. xi. 5) ; i.e. he was taken up from this temporal life and
transfigured into life eternal, being exempted by God from the
law of death and of return to the dust, as those of the faithful
will be, who shall be alive at the coming of Christ to judgment,
and who in like manner shall not taste of death and corruption,
but be changed in a moment. There is no foundation for the
opinion, that Enoch did not participate at his translation in the
glorification which awaits the righteous at the resurrection.
For, according to 1 Cor. xv. 20, 23, it is not in glorification,
but in the resurrection, that Christ is the first-fruits. Now the
126 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
latter presupposes death. Whoever, therefore, through the grace
of God is exempted from death, cannot rise from the dead, but
reaches a^Oapaia, or the glorified state of perfection, through
being "changed" or " clothed upon" (2 Cor. v. 4). This does
not at all affect the truth of the statement in Rom. v. 12, 14.
For the same God who has appointed death as the wages of sin,
and given us, through Christ, the victory over death, possesses
the power to glorify into eternal life an Enoch and an Elijah,
and all who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord without
chaining their glorification to death and resurrection. Enoch
and Elijah were translated into eternal life with God without
passing through disease, death, and corruption, for the consola-
tion of believers, and to awaken the hope of a life after death.
Enoch's translation stands about half way between Adam and
the flood, in the 987th year after the creation of Adam. Seth,
Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared were still alive. His son
Methuselah and his grandson Lamech were also living, the latter
being 113 years old. Noah was not yet born, and Adam was
dead. His translation, in consequence of his walking with God,
was " an example of repentance to all generations," as the son of
Sirach says (Ecclus. xliv. 16) ; and the apocryphal legend in the
book of Enoch i. 9 represents him as prophesying of the coming
of the Lord, to execute judgment upon the ungodly (Jude 14,
15). In comparison with the longevity of the other fathers,
Enoch was taken away young, before he had reached half the
ordinary age, as a sign that whilst long life, viewed as a time for
repentance and grace, is indeed a blessing from God, when the
ills which have entered the world through sin are considered, it
is also a burden and trouble which God shortens for His chosen.
That the patriarchs of the old world felt the ills of this earthly
life in all their severity, was attested by Lamech (vers. 28, 29),
when he gave his son, who was born 69 years after Enoch's
translation, the name of Noah, saying, " This same shall comfort
us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, hecause of the
ground which the Lord hath cursed." Noah, fTb from TVQ to rest
and n^fl to bring rest, is explained by Em to comfort, in the
sense of helpful and remedial consolation. Lamech not only
felt the burden of his work upon the ground which God had
cursed, but looked forward with a prophetic presentiment to the
time when the existing misery and corruption would terminate,
CHAP. VI. 1-8. 127
and a change for the better, a redemption from the curse, would
come. This presentiment assumed the form of hope when his
son was born ; he therefore gave expression to it in his name.
But his hope was not realized, at least not in the way that he
desired. A change did indeed take place in the lifetime of
Noah. By the judgment of the flood the corrupt race was ex-
terminated, and in Noah, who was preserved because of his
blameless walk with God, the restoration of the human race was
secured ; but the effects of the curse, though mitigated, were
not removed ; whilst a covenant sign guaranteed the preservation
of the human race, and therewith, by implication, his hope of
the eventual removal of the curse (ix. 8-17). — The genealogical
table breaks off with Noah; all that is mentioned with reference
to him being the birth of his three sons, when he was 500 years
old (ver. 32 ; see chap. xi. 10), without any allusion to the re-
maining years of his life, — an indication of a later hand. " The
mention of three sons leads to the expectation, that whereas
hitherto the line has been perpetuated through one member
alone, in the future each of the three sons will form a new begin-
ning (yid. ix. 18, 19, x. 1)." — M. Baumgarten.
MARRIAGE OF THE SONS OF GOD AND THE DAUGHTERS OF
MEN. — OHAP. VI. 1-8.
The genealogies in chap. iv. and v., which trace the develop-
ment of the human race through two fundamentally different lines,
headed by Cain and Seth, are accompanied by a description of
their moral development, and the statement that through mar-
riages between the " sons of God" (Elohim) and the " daughters
of men" the wickedness became so great, that God determined to
destroy the men whom He had created. This description applies
to the whole human race, and presupposes the intercourse or
marriage of the Cainites with the Sethites. — Ver. 1 relates to the
increase of men generally (D"J^?, without any restriction), i.e. of
the whole human race ; and whilst the moral corruption is repre-
sented as universal, the whole human race, with the exception of
Noah, who found grace before God (ver. 8), is described as ripe
for destruction (vers. 3 and 5-8). To understand this section,
and appreciate the causes of this complete degeneracy of the race,
we must first obtain a correct interpretation of the expressions
128 the first book of moses.
" sons of God" (DTitan ^2) and "daughters of men" (dixh nm).
Three different views have been entertained from the very ear-
liest times : the " sons of God" being regarded as (a) the sons
of princes, (b) angels, (c) the Sethites or godly men ; and the
" daughters of men," as the daughters (a) of people of the lower
orders, (b) of mankind generally, (c) of the Cainites, or of the rest
of mankind as contrasted with the godly or the children of God.
Of these three views, the first, although it has become the tradi-
tional one in orthodox rabbinical Judaism, may be dismissed at
once as not warranted by the usages of the language, and as
altogether unscriptural. The second, on the contrary, may be
defended on two plausible grounds : first, the fact that the " sons
of God," in Job i. 6; ii. 1, and xxxviii. 7, and in Dan. hi. 25, are
unquestionably angels (also 0 vX V.? m Ps- xxix. 1 and lxxxix. 7) ;
and secondly, the antithesis, " sons of God" and " daughters
of men." Apart from the context and tenor of the passage,
these two points would lead us most naturally to regard the
u son3 of God" as angels, in distinction from men and the
daughters of men. But this explanation, though the first to
suggest itself, can only lay claim to be received as the correct
one, provided the language itself admits of no other. Now that
is not the case. For it is not to angels only that the term " sons
of Elohim," or " sons of Elim," is applied ; but in Ps. Ixxiii. 15,
in an address to Elohim, the godly are called " the generation of
Thy sons," i.e. sons of Elohim ; in Deut. xxxii. 5 the Israelites
are called His (God's) sons, and in Hos. i. 10, " sons of the living
God ;" and in Ps. Ixxx. 17, Israel is spoken of as the son, whom
Elohim has made strong. These passages show that the expres-
sion " sons of God" cannot be elucidated by philological means,
but must be interpreted by theology alone. Moreover, even
when it is applied to the angels, it is questionable whether it is
to be understood in a physical or ethical sense. The notion that
" it is employed in a physical sense as nomen natures, instead of
angels as nomen officii, and presupposes generation of a physical
kind," Ave must reject as an unscriptural and gnostic error. Ac-
cording to the scriptural view, the heavenly spirits are creatures of
God, and not begotten from the divine essence. Moreover, all the
other terms applied to the angels are ethical in their character.
But if the title " sons of God" cannot involve the notion of phy-
sical generation, it cannot be restricted to celestial spirits, but is
CHAP. VI. 1-8. 121)
applicable to all beings which bear the image of God, or by virtue
of their likeness to God participate in the glory, power, and
blessedness of the divine life, — to men therefore as well as angels,
since God has caused man to " want but little of Elohim," or to
stand but a little behind Elohim (Ps. viii. 5), so that even ma-
gistrates are designated " Elohim, and sons of the Most High"
(Ps. Ixxxii. 6). When Delitzsch objects to the application of the
expression " sons of Elohim" to pious men, because, " although
the idea of a child of God may indeed have pointed, even in the
O. T., beyond its theocratic limitation to Israel (Ex. iv. 22 ;
Deut. xiv. 1) towards a wider ethical signification (Ps. lxxiii. 15 ;
Prov. xiv. 26), yet this extension and expansion were not so
completed, that in historical prose the terms ' sons of God' (for
which ' sons of Jehovah' should have been used to prevent
mistake), and ' sons (or daughters) of men,' could be used to dis-
tinguish the children of God and the children of the world," —
this argument rests upon the erroneous supposition, that the ex
pression " sons of God" was introduced by Jehovah for the first
time when He selected Israel to be the covenant nation. So
much is true, indeed, that before the adoption of Israel as the
first-born son of Jehovah (Ex. iv. 22), it would have been out of
place to speak of sons of Jehovah ; but the notion is false, or at
least incapable of proof, that there were not children of God in
the olden time, long before Abraham's call, and that, if there
were, they could not have been called " sons of Elohim." The
idea was not first introduced in connection with the theocracy,
and extended thence to a more universal signification. It had
its roots in the divine image, and therefore was general in its
application from the very first ; and it was not till God in the
character of Jehovah chose Abraham and his seed to be the
vehicles of salvation, and left the heathen nations to go their
own way, that the expression received the specifically theocratic
signification of " son of Jehovah," to be again liberated and
expanded into the more comprehensive idea of vcodeaia tou
Oeov (i.e. Elohim, not rov Kvplov — Jehovah), at the coming of
Christ, the Saviour of all nations. If in the olden time there
were pious men who, like Enoch and Noah, walked with Elohim,
or who, even if they did not stand in this close priestly relation
to God, made the divine image a reality through their piety and
fear of God, then there were sons (children) of
130 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES
the only correct appellation was " sons of Elohim," since sonship
to Jehovah was introduced with the call of Israel, so that it
could only have been proleptically that the children of God in
the old world could be called " sons of Jehovah." But if it be
still argued, that in mere prose the term "sons of God" could
not have been applied to children of God, or pious men, this
would be equally applicable to " sons of Jehovah." On the
other hand, there is this objection to our applying it to angels,
that the pious, who walked with God and called upon the name
of the Lord, had been mentioned just before, whereas no allu-
sion had been made to angels, not even to their creation.
Again, the antithesis " sons of God" and " daughters of men"
does not prove that the former were angels. It by no means
follows, that because in ver. 1 Dixn denotes man as a genus, i.e.
the whole human race, it must do the same in ver. 2, where the
expression " daughters of men" is determined by the antithesis
" sons of God." And with reasons existing for understanding
by the sons of God and the daughters of men two species of the
genus D"7Nn, mentioned in ver. 1, no valid objection can be offered
to the restriction of D1NH, through the antithesis Elohim, to all
men with the exception of the sons of God ; since this mode of
expression is by no means unusual in Hebrew. " From the ex-
pression ' daughters of men,' " as Dettinger observes, " it by no
means follows that the sons of God were not men ; any more
than it follows from Jer. xxxii. 20, where it is said that God had
done miracles 'in Israel, and among men,'' or from Isa. xliii. 4,
where God says He will give men for the Israelites, or from
Judg. xvi. 7, where Samson says, that if he is bound with seven
green withs he shall be as weak as a man, or from Ps. lxxiii. 5,
where it is said of the ungodly they are not in trouble as men,
that the Israelites, or Samson, or the ungodly, were not men at
all. In all these passages D~ix (men) denotes the remainder of
mankind in distinction from those who are especially named."
Cases occur, too, even in simple prose, in which the same term
is used, first in a general, and then directly afterwards in a more
restricted sense. We need cite only one, which occurs in Judg.
xix.-xxi. In chap. xix. 30 reference is made to the coming of
the children of Israel {i.e. of the twelve tribes) out of Egypt ; and
directly afterwards (chap. xx. 1, 2) it is related that " all the
children of Israel,'' " all the tribes of Israel," assembled together
CHAP. VI. 1-8. 131
(to make war, as we learn from vers. 3 sqq., upon Benjamin) ;
and in the whole account of the war, chap. xx. and xxi., the
tribes of Israel are distinguished from the tribe of Benjamin •
so that the expression " tribes of Israel" really means the rest of
the tribes with the exception of Benjamin. And yet the Ben-
jamites were Israelites. "Why then should the fact that the
sons of God are distinguished from the daughters of men prove
that the former could not be men ? There is not force enough
in these two objections to compel us to adopt the conclusion that
the sons of God were angels.
The question whether the " sons of Elohim " were celestial
or terrestrial sons of God (angels or pious men of the family of
Seth) can only be determined from the context, and from the
substance of the passage itself, that is to say, from what is re-
lated respecting the conduct of the sons of God and its results.
That the connection does not favour the idea of their being
angels, is acknowledged even by those who adopt this view.
" It cannot be denied," says Velitzsch, " that the connection of
chap. vi. 1-8 with chap. iv. necessitates the assumption, that
such intermarriages (of the Sethite and Cainite families) did
take place about the time of the flood (cf. Matt. xxiv. 38 ; Luke
xvii. 27) ; and the prohibition of mixed marriages under the law
(Ex. xxxiv. 16 ; cf. Gen. xxvii. 46, xxviii. 1 sqq.) also favours the
same idea." But this "assumption" is placed beyond all doubt,
by what is here related of the sons of God. In ver. 2 it is
stated that "the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that
they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they
chose," i.e. of any with whose beauty they were charmed ; and
these wives bare children to them (ver. 4). Now n$x rip? (to
take a wife) is a standing expression throughout the whole of
the Old Testament for the marriage relation established by God
at the creation, and is never applied to iropveta, or the simple
act of physical connection. This is quite sufficient of itself to
exclude any reference to angels. For Christ Himself distinctly
states that the angels cannot marry (Matt. xxii. 30 ; Mark xii.
25 ; cf. Luke xx. 34 sqq.). And when Kurtz endeavours to
weaken the force of these words of Christ, by arguing that they
do not prove that it is impossible for angels so to fall from their
original holiness as to sink into an unnatural state ; this phrase
has no meaning, unless by conclusive analogies, or the clear
132 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
testimony of Scripture,1 it can be proved that the angels either
possess by nature a material corporeality adequate to the con-
traction of a human marriage, or that by rebellion against their
Creator they can acquire it, or that there are some creatures in
heaven and on earth which, through sinful degenerac}', or by
sinking into an unnatural state, can become possessed of the
1 We cannot admit that there is any force in Hofmanii's argument in
his Schriftbeweis 1, p. 42G, that "the begetting of children on the part of
angels is not more irreconcilable with a nature that is not organized, like
that of man, on the basis of sexual distinctions, than partaking of food is
with a nature that is altogether spiritual ; and yet food was eaten by the
angels who visited Abraham." For, in the first place, the eating in this
case was a miracle wrought through the condescending grace of the omni-
potent God, and furnishes no standard for judging what angels can do by
their own power in rebellion against God. And in the second place, there
is a considerable difference between the act of eating on the part of the
angels of God who appeared in human shape, and the taking of wives and
begetting of children on the part of sinning angels. "We are quite unable
also to accept as historical testimony, the myths of the heathen respecting
demigods, sons of gods, and the begetting of children on the part of their
gods, or the fables of the book of Enoch (chap. vi. sqq.) about the 200
angels, with their leaders, who lusted after the beautiful and delicate
daughters of men, and who came down from heaven and took to them-
selves wives, with whom they begat giants of 3000 (or according to one
MS. 300) cubits in height. Nor do 2 Pet. ii. 4 and Jude G furnish any
evidence of angel marriages. Peter is merely speaking of sinning angels in
general {dyyi'kuv u.[A.xp-rlaii.vruv) whom God did not spare, and not of any
particular sin on the part of a small number of angels ; and Jude describes
these angels as -vovg piy rnpr^ccvTu; tvjv iavruv oipx'hv, d'h'hoi cc7ro'htir6vTce.s ro
i'Ziov oixriT-zipioi/, those who kept not their princedom, their position as rulers,
but left their own habitation. There is nothing here about marriages with
the daughters of men or the begetting of children, even if we refer the
word rovroi; in the clause rov opotov tovtoi; rpovov Ix.-xop'Jiiau.au.i in ver. 7 to
the angels mentioned in ver. 6 ; for tKiropysusiv, the commission of fornication,
would be altogether different from marriage, that is to say, from a conjugal
bond that was permanent even though unnatural. But it is neither certain
nor probable that this is the connection of rouroi;. Huther, the latest com-
mentator upon this Epistle, who gives the preference to this explanation of
tovtois, and therefore cannot be accused of being biassed by doctrinal pre-
judices, says distinctly in the 2d Ed. of his commentary, " tovtoi; may be
grammatically construed as referring to Sodom and Gomorrah, or per synesin
to the inhabitants of these cities ; but in that case the sin of Sodom and
Gomorrah would only be mentioned indirectly." There is nothing in the
rules of syntax, therefore, to prevent our connecting the word with Sodom
and Gomorrah ; and it is not a fact, that " grammaticx ct logical praecepta
compel us to refer this word to the angels," as G. v. Zeschwitz says. But
CHAP. VI. 1-8. 133
power, which they have not by nature, of generating and pro-
pagating their species. As man could indeed destroy by sin
the nature which he had received from his Creator, but could
not by his own power restore it when destroyed, to say nothing
of implanting an organ or a power that was wanting before ; so
we cannot believe that angels, through apostasy from God, could
the very same reason which Huther assigns for not connecting it with
Sodom and Gomorrah, may be also assigned for not connecting it with the
angels, namely, that in that case the sin of the angels would only be men-
tioned indirectly. We regard PhiiippPs explanation (in his Glaulenslehre
iii. p. 303) as a possible one, viz. that the word -zovroig refers back to the
uvdpuirot daihyiig mentioned in ver. 4, and as by no means set aside by
De Wette's objection, that the thought of ver. 8 would be anticipated in that
case ; for this objection is fully met by the circumstance, that not only does
the word ovroi, which is repeated five times from ver. 8 onwards, refer back
to these men, but even the word tovtoic in ver. 14 also. On the other hand,
the reference of rovroig to the angels is altogether precluded by the clause
x.oi\ ot^i^dovaxi oivliju cccpx.6$ hipxg, which follows the word exmpvsiHFKaut.
For fornication on the part of the angels could only consist in their going
after flesh, or, as Hofmann expresses it, "having to do with flesh, for which
they were not created," but not in their going after other, or foreign flesh.
There would be no sense in the word hipxg unless those who were ix.irop-
vswos-vTe; were themselves possessed of o-«c§ ; so that this is the only alter-
native, either we must attribute to the angels a a»p% or fleshly body, or the
idea of referring tovtoi? to the angels must be given up. When Kurtz
replies to this by saying that " to angels human bodies are quite as much a
hipx axp^ i.e. a means of sensual gratification opposed to their nature and
calling, as man can be to human man," he hides the difficulty, but does not
remove it, by the ambiguous expression " opposed to their nature and call-
ing." The hi pa. oxp% must necessarily presuppose an ilia. axp%. — But it is
thought by some, that even if rovrotg in ver. 7 do not refer to the angels
in ver. 6, the words of Jude agree so thoroughly with the tradition of the
book of Enoch respecting the fall of the angels, that we must admit the
allusion to the Enoch legend, and so indirectly to Gen. vi., since Jude could
not have expressed himself more clearly to persons who possessed the book
of Enoch, or were acquainted with the tradition it contained. Now this
conclusion would certainly be irresistible, if the only sin of the angels
mentioned in the book of Enoch, as that for which they were kept in chains
of darknes still the judgment-day, had been their intercourse with human
wives. For the fact that Jude was acquainted with the legend of Enoch,
and took for granted that the readers of his Epistle were so too, is evident
from his introducing a prediction of Enoch in vers. 14, 15, which is to be
found in chap. i. 9 of Dillmann's edition of the book of Enoch. But it is
admitted by all critical writers upon this book, that in the book of Enoch
which has been edited by Dilhnann, and is only to be found in an Ethiopia
version, there are contradictory legends concerning the fall and judgment
134 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
acquire sexual power of which they had previously been desti-
tute.
Ver. 3. The sentence of God upon the " sons of God" is, also
appropriate to men only. " Jehovah said : My spirit shall not
rule in men for ever; in their wandering they are jlesh" The
verb 1^1= J*! signifies to rule (hence JH^ the ruler), and to judge,
of the angels ; that the hook itself is composed of earlier and later materials ;
and that those very sections (chap, vi.-xvi. 106, etc.) in which the legend
of the angel marriages is given without ambiguity, belong to the so-called
book of Noah, i.e. to a later portion of the Enoch legend, which is opposed
in many passages to the earlier legend. The fall of the angels is certainly
often referred to in the earlier portions of the work ; but among all the
passages adduced by Dillmann in proof of this, there is only one (chap. xix.
1) which mentions the angels who had taken wives. In the others, the only
thing mentioned as the sin of the angels or of the hosts of Azazel, is the
fact that they were subject to Satan, and seduced those who dwelt on the
earth (chap. liv. 3-6), or that they came down from heaven to earth, and
revealed to the children of men what was hidden from them, and then led
them astray to the commission of sin (chap. lxiv. 2). There is nothing
at all here about their taking wives. Moreover, in the earlier portions of
the book, besides the fall of the angels, there is frequent reference made
to a fall, i.e. an act of sin, on the part of the stars of heaven and the
army of heaven, which transgressed the commandment of God before
they rose, by not appearing at their appointed time (vid. chap, xviii.
14, 15, xxi. 3, xc. 21, 24, etc.) ; and their punishment and place of punish-
ment are described, in just the same manner as in the case of the wicked
angels, as a prison, a lofty and horrible place in which the seven stars
of heaven lie bound like great mountains and flaming with fire (chap.
xxi. 2, 3), as an abyss, narrow and deep, dreadful and dark, in which
the star which fell first from heaven is lying, bound hand and foot (chap.
Ixxxviii. 1, cf. xc. 24). From these passages it is quite evident, that the
legend concerning the fall of the angels and stars sprang out of Isa. xxiv.
21, 22 (" And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall visit the
host of the height (DilftH JOV, the host of heaven, by which stars and angels
are to be understood) on high (t.e. the spiritual powers of the heavens)
and the kings of the earth upon the earth, and they shall be gathered to-
gether, bound in the dungeon, and shut up in prison, and after many days
they shall be punished"), along with Isa. xiv. 12 (" How art thou fallen
from heaven, thou beautiful morning star!"), and that the account of the
sons of God in Gen. vi., as interpreted by those who refer it to the
angels, was afterwards combined and amalgamated with it. Now if these
different legends, describing the judgment upon the stars that fell from
heaven, and the angels that followed Satan in seducing man, in just the
same manner as the judgment upon the angels who begot giants from
women, were in circulation at the time when the Epistle of Jude was writ-
ten ; we must not interpret the sin of the angels, referred to by Peter and
CHAP. VI. 3. 135
as the consequence of ruling, rvn is the divine spirit of life
bestowed upon man, the principle of physical and ethical, natural
and spiritual life. This His spirit God will withdraw from man,
and thereby put an end to their life and conduct. 03^2 is re-
garded by many as a particle, compounded of 3, V a contraction
Jude, in a one-sided manner, and arbitrarily connect it with only such pas-
sages of the book of Enoch as speak of angel marriages, to the entire disre-
gard of all the other passages, which mention totally different sins as com-
mitted by the angels, that are punished with bands of darkness ; but we must
interpret it from what Jude himself has said concerning this, sin, as Peter
gives no further explanation of what he means by ufAapr^aat. Now the
only sins that Jude mentions are fi'/j TYiprtoxi rqv ixvruv xpx'^" and J.'iro'him'iv
to iltou olxYiT'/iptou. The two are closely connected. Through not keeping
the dpxy (i.e. the position as rulers in heaven) which belonged to them, and
was assigned them at their creation, the angels left " their own habitation"
(i'Ziov oixYiTiiptou) ; just as man, when he broke the commandment of God
and failed to keep his position as ruler on earth, also lost " his own habita-
tion" (i'oiov oUyrqptov), that is to say, not paradise alone, but the holy body
of innocence also, so that he needed a covering for his nakedness, and will
continue to need it, until we are " clothed upon with our house which is
from heaven" {oUnriiptov ijpZv s| ovpxvov). In this description of the angels'
sin, there is not the slightest allusion to their leaving heaven to woo the
beautiful daughters of men. The words may be very well interpreted, as
they were by the earlier Christian theologians, as relating to the fall of
Satan and his angels, to whom all that is said concerning their punishment
fully applies. If Jude had had the vopviix of the angels, mentioned in the
Enoch legends, in his mind, he would have stated this distinctly, just as he
does in ver. 9 in the case of the legend concerning Michael and the devil,
and in ver. 11 in that of Enoch's prophecy. There was all the more reason
for his doing this, because not only do contradictory accounts of the sin of
the angels occur in the Enoch legends, but a comparison of the parallels
cited from the book of Enoch proves that he deviated from the Enoch legend
in points of no little importance. Thus, for example, according to Enoch
liv. 3, " iron chains of immense weight " are prepared for the hosts of Azazel,
to put them into the lowest hell, and cast them on that great day into the
furnace with flaming fire. Now Jude and Peter say nothing about iron
chains, and merely mention "everlasting chains under darkness " and "chains
of darkness." Again, according to Enoch x. 12, the angel sinners are
" bound fast under the earth for seventy generations, till the day of judgment
and their completion, till the last judgment shall be held for all eternity."
Peter and Jude make no allusion to this point of time, and the supporters
of the angel marriages, therefore, have thought well to leave it out when
quoting this parallel to Jude 6. Under these circumstances, the silence of
the apostles as to either marriages or fornication on the part of the sinful
angels, is a sure sign that they gave no credence to these fables of a Jewish
gnosticizing tradition.
136 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
of "HPJjj, and 03 (also), used in the sense of quoniam, because,
(B& = ">«'«?, as V or g = IfK Judg. v. 7, vi. 17 ; Song of Sol.
i. 7). But the objection to this explanation is, that the 03, " be-
cause he also is flesh," introduces an incongruous emphasis into
the clause. We therefore prefer to regard D2^ as the inf. of
)1V = rw with the suffix : " in their erring (that of men) lie
(man as a genus) is flesh ;" an explanation to which, to our mind,
the extremely harsh change of number {they, he), is no objection,
since many examples might be adduced of a similar change (vid.
Hupfeld on Ps. v. 10). Men, says God, have proved themselves
by their erring and straying to be flesh, i.e. given up to the flesh,
and incapable of being ruled by the Spirit of God and led back
to the divine goal of their life. 1^2 is used already in its ethical
signification, like crapi; in the New Testament, denoting not
merely the natural corporeality of man, but his materiality as
rendered ungodly by sin. " Therefore his days shall be 120
years:" this means, not that human life should in future never
attain a greater age than 120 years, but that a respite of 120
years should still be granted to the human race. This sentence,
as we may gather from the context, was made known to Noah
in his 480th year, to be published by him as " preacher of right-
eousness" (2 Pet. ii. 5) to the degenerate race. The reason why
men had gone so far astray, that God determined to withdraw
His spirit and give them up to destruction, was that the sons of
God had taken wives of such of the daughters of men as they
chose. Can this mean, because angels had formed marriages
with the daughters of men % Even granting that such marriages,
as being unnatural connections, would have led to the complete
corruption of human nature ; the men would in that case have
been the tempted, and the real authors of the corruption would
have been the angels. Why then should judgment fall upon
the tempted alone ? The judgments of God in the world are
not executed with such partiality as this. And the supposition
that nothing is said about the punishment of the angels, because
the narrative has to do with the history of man, and the spiritual
world is intentionally veiled as much as possible, does not meet
the difficulty. If the sons of God were angels, the narrative is
concerned not only with men, but with angels also ; and it is not
the custom of the Scriptures merely to relate the judgments
which fall upon the tempted, and say nothing at all about the
CHAP. VI. 4. 137
tempters. For the contrary, see chap. iii. 14 sqq. If the " sons
of God" were not men, so as to be included in the term D1X, the
punishment would need to be specially pointed out in their case,
and no deep revelations of the spiritual world would be required,
since these celestial tempters would be living with men upon the
earth, when they had taken wives from among their daughters.
The judgments of God are not only free from all unrighteous-
ness, but avoid every kind of partiality.
Ver. 4. " The Nephilim xoere on the earth in those days, and
also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters
of wen, and they bare children to them : these are the heroes
(D"n'3|n) who from the olden time (D?W£, as in Ps. xxv. 6 ; 1 Sam.
xxvii. 8) are the men of name'''' (i.e. noted, renowned or notorious
men). Dy^, from ?£) to fall upon (Job i. 15 ; Josh. xi. 7), sig-
nifies the invaders (eTrnriirTovTes Aq., fiialoi Sym.). Luther gives
the correct meaning, "tyrants:" they were called Nephilim be-
cause they fell upon the people and oppressed them.1 The
meaning of the verse is a subject of dispute. To an unpreju-
diced mind, the words, as they stand, represent the Nephilim,
who were on the earth in those days, as existing before the sons
of God began to marry the daughters of men, and clearly dis-
tinguish them from the fruits of these marriages. Vn can no
more be rendered " they became, or arose," in this connection,
than PPfj in chap. i. 2. **n3 would have been the proper word.
The expression " in those days" refers most naturally to the
1 The notion that the Nephilim were giants, to which the Sept. rendering
yiyaPTig has given rise, was rejected even by Luther as fabulous. He bases
his view upon Josh. xi. 7 : " Nephilim non dictos a magnitudine corporum,
sicut Rabbini putant, sed a tyrannide et oppressione quod vi grassati sint,
nulla habita ratione legum aut honestatis, sed simpliciter indidgentes suis
voluptatibus et cupiditatibus.'''1 The opinion that giants are intended derives
no support from Num. xiii. 32, 33. "When the spies describe the land of
Canaan as "a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof," and then add
(ver. 33), " and there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak among (p lit.
from, out of, in a partitive sense) the Nephilim," by the side of whom they
were as grasshoppers; the term Nephilim cannot signify giants, since the
spies not only mention them especially along with the inhabitants of the
land, who are described as people of great stature, but single out only a
portion of the Nephilim as "sons of Anak" (pjy 133), i.e. long-necked
people or giants. The explanation "fallen from heaven" needs no refuta-
tion ; inasmuch as the main element, " from heaven," is a purely arbitrary
addition.
PENT. — VOL. I. K
138 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
time when God pronounced the sentence upon the degenerate
race ; but it is so general and comprehensive a term, that it
must not be confined exclusively to that time, not merely be-
cause the divine sentence was first pronounced after these mar
riages were contracted, and the marriages, if they did not
produce the corruption, raised it to that fulness of iniquity
which was ripe for the judgment, but still more because the
words " after that" represent the marriages which drew down
the judgment as an event that followed the appearance of the
Nephilim. " The same were mighty men ;" this might point back
to the Nephilim ; but it is a more natural supposition, that it
refers to the children born to the sons of God. " These"
i.e. the sons sprung from those marriages, " are the heroes, those
renowned heroes of old." Now if, according to the simple
meaning of the passage, the Nephilim were in existence at the
very time when the sons of God came in to the daughters of
men, the appearance of the Nephilim cannot afford the slightest *
evidence that the " sons of God" were angels, by whom a family
of monsters were begotten, whether demigods, daemons, or angel-
men.1
1 How thoroughly irreconcilable the contents of this verse are with the
angel-hypothesis is evident from the strenuous efforts of its supporters to
bring them into harmony with it. Thus, in Reuters Repert., p. 7, Del.
observes that the verse cannot be rendered in any but the following man-
ner : " The giants were on the earth in those days, and also afterwards, when
the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, these they bare to them,
or rather, and these bare to them ; " but, for all that, he gives this as the
meaning of the words, " At the time of the divine determination to inflict
punishment the giants arose, and also afterwards, when this unnatural con-
nection between super-terrestrial and human beings continued, there arose
such giants;" not only substituting "arose" for "were," but changing
"when they connected themselves with them" into "when this connection
continued." Nevertheless he is obliged to confess that " it is strange that
this unnatural connection, which I also suppose to be the intermediate cause
of the origin of the giants, should not be mentioned in the first clause of
ver. 4." This is an admission that the text says nothing about the origin
of the giants being traceable to the marriages of the sons of God, but that
the commentators have been obliged to insert it in the text to save their
angel marriages. Kurtz has tried three different explanations of this verse,
but they are all opposed to the rules of the language. (1) In the History of
the Old Covenant he gives this rendering : " Nephilim were on earth in these
days, and that even after the sons of God had formed connections with the
daughters of men ;" in which he not only gives to D3 the unsupportable
chap. vi. ■$-*. 139
Vers. 5-8. Now when the wickedness of man became great,
and " every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil the whole day" i.e. continually and altogether evil, it re-
pented God that He had made man, and He determined to
destroy them. This determination and the motive assigned
are also irreconcilable with the angel-theory. " Had the god-
less race, which God destroyed by the flood, sprung either en-
tirely or in part from the marriage of angels to the daughters
of men, it would no longer have been the race first created
by God in Adam, but a grotesque product of the Adamitic
factor created by God, and an entirely foreign and angelic
factor" (Phil.).1 The force of 0fB»4 "it repented the Lord,"
meaning, " even, just," but takes the imperfect }N2* in the sense of the per-
fect !|N3- (2) In his Ehen der Sohne Gottes (p. 80) he gives the choice of
this and the following rendering : "The Nephilim- were on earth in those
days,. and also after this had happened, that the sons of God came to the
daughters of men and begat children," where the ungrammatical rendering
of the imperfect as the perfect is artfully concealed by the interpolation of
" after this had happened." (3) In " die Sohne Gottes" p. 85 : "In these
days and also afterwards, when the sons of God came (continued to come)
to the daughters of men, they bare to them (sc. Nephilim)," where ^3%
they came, is arbitrarily altered into S13^ ^Di"1, they continued to come.
But when he observes in defence of this quid pro quo, that "the imperfect
denotes here, as Hengstenberg has correctly affirmed, and as so often is the
case, an action frequently repeated in past times," this remark only shows
that he has neither understood the nature of the usage to which H. refers,
nor what Ewald has said (§ 136) concerning the force and use of the im-
perfect.
1 When, on the other hand, the supporters of the angel marriages main-
tain that it is only on this interpretation that the necessity for the flood,
i.e. for the complete destruction of the whole human race with the excep-
tion of righteous Noah, can be understood, not only is there no scriptural
foundation for this argument, but it is decidedly at variance with those
statements of the Scriptures, which speak of the corruption of the men tvhom
God had created, and not of a race that had arisen through an unnatural
connection of angels and men and forced their way into God's creation. If
it were really the case, that it would otherwise be impossible to understand
where the necessity could lie, for all the rest of the human race to be de-
stroyed and a new beginning to be made, whereas afterwards, when
Abraham was chosen, the rest of the human race was not only spared, but
preserved for subsequent participation in the blessings of salvation : we
should only need to call Job to mind, who also could not comprehend the
necessity for the fearful sufferings which overwhelmed him, and was unable
to discover the justice of God, but who was afterwards taught a better
140 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
may be gathered from the explanatory SStylV, " it grieved Him
at His heart." This shows that the repentance of God does not
presuppose any variableness in His nature or His purposes. In
this sense God never repents of anything (1 Sam. xv. 29),
" quia nihil illi inopinatum vel non prcevisum accidit" (Calvin).
The repentance of God is an anthropomorphic expression for
the pain of the divine love at the sin of man, and signifies that
" God is hurt no less by the atrocious sins of men than if they
pierced His heart with mortal anguish" (Calvin). The destruc-
tion of all, " from man unto beast," etc., is to be explained on
the ground of the sovereignty of man upon the earth, the irra-
tional creatures being created for him, and therefore involved in
his fall. This destruction, however, was not to bring the human
race to an end. " Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord."
In these words mercy is seen in the midst of wrath, pledging
the preservation and restoration of humanity.
III. THE HISTORY OF NOAH.
Chap. vi. 9-ix. 29.
The important relation in which Noah stands both to sacred
and universal history, arises from the fact, that he found mercy
on account of his blameless walk with God; that in him the
human race was kept from total destruction, and he was pre-
served from the all-destroying flood, to found in his sons a new
lesson by God Himself, and reproved for his rash conclusions, as a sufficient
proof of the deceptive and futile character of all such human reasoning.
But this is not the true state of the case. The Scriptures expressly affirm,
that after the flood the moral corruption of man was the same as before the
flood ; for they describe it in chap. viii. 21 in the very same words as in
chap. vi. 5 : and the reason they assign for the same judgment not being
repeated, is simply the promise that God would no more smite and destroy
all living, as He had done before — an evident proof that God expected no
change in human nature, and out of pure mercy and long-suffering would
never send a second flood. " Now, if the race destroyed had been one that
sprang from angel-fathers, it is difficult to understand why no improvement
was to be looked for after the flood ; for the repetition of any such unna-
tural angel-tragedy was certainly not probable, and still less inevitable"
(Philippi).
CHAP. VI. 9-22. 141
beginning to the history of the world. The piety of Noah, his
preservation, and the covenant through which God appointed
him the head of the human race, are the three main points in
this section. The first of these is dismissed in a very few words.
The second, on the contrary, viz. the destruction of the old
world by the flood, and the preservation of Noah, together with
the animals enclosed in the ark, is circumstantially and elabo-
rately described, " because this event included, on the one hand,
a work of judgment and mercy of the greatest significance to the
history of the kingdom of God" — a judgment of such univer-
sality and violence as will only be seen again in the judgment at
the end of the world ; and, on the other hand, an act of mercy
which made the flood itself a flood of grace, and in that respect
a type of baptism (1 Pet. iii. 21), and of life rising out of death.
" Destruction ministers to preservation, immersion to purification,
death to new birth ; the old corrupt earth is buried in the flood,
that out of this grave a new world may arise" (pelitzsch).
PREPARATION FOR THE FLOOD. CHAP. VI. 9-22.
Vers. 9-12 contain a description of Noah and his contempo-
raries ; vers. 13-22, the announcement of the purpose of God
with reference to the flood. — Ver. 9. " Noah, a righteous man,
was blameless among his generations :" righteous in his moral re-
lation to God ; blameless (rekeios, integer) in his character and
conduct. nilMj yeveai, were the generations or families " which
passed by Noah, the Nestor of his time." His righteousness
and integrity were manifested in his walking with God, in which
he resembled Enoch (chap. v. 22). — In vers. 10-12, the account
of the birth of his three sons, and of the corruption of all flesh, is
repeated. This corruption is represented as corrupting the whole
earth and filling it with wickedness ; and thus the judgment
of the flood is for the first time fully accounted for. " The
earth was corrupt before God (Elohim points back to the pre-
vious Elohim in ver. 9)," it became so conspicuous to God, that
He could not refrain from punishment. The corruption pro-
ceeded from the fact, that " all flesh " — i.e. the whole human
race which had resisted the influence of the Spirit of God and
become flesh (see ver. 3) — " had corrupted its way" The term
" flesh" in ver. 12 cannot include the animal world, since the
142 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
expression, " corrupted its way," is applicable to man alone. The
fact that in vers. 13 and 17 this term embraces both men and
animals is no proof to the contrary, for the simple reason, that
in ver. 19 " all flesh" denotes the animal world only, an evident
proof that the precise meaning of the word must always be de-
termined from the context. — Ver. 13. " The end of all flesh is
come before Me" ?X W3, when applied to rumours, invariably
signifies " to reach the ear" (vid. chap, xviii. 21 ; Ex. iii. 9 ;
Esth. ix. 11) ; hence *)&? X3 in this case cannot mean a me con*
stitutus est (Ges.). }'i?, therefore, is not the end in the sense of
destruction, but the end (extremity) of depravity or corruption,
which leads to destruction. " For the earth has become full of
wickedness DrP32»," i.e. proceeding from them, " and I destroy
them along mth the earth? Because all flesh had destroyed its
way, it should be destroyed with the earth by God. The lex
talionis is obvious here. — Vers. 14 sqq. Noah was exempted
from the extermination. He was to build an ark, in order that
he himself, his family, and the animals might be preserved,
rnn, which is only used here and in Ex. ii. 3, 5, where it is
applied to the ark in which Moses was placed, is probably an
Egyptian word : the LXX. render it iciftaTos here, and Olfir) in
Exodus ; the Vulgate area, from which our word ark is derived.
Gopher-wood (ligna bituminata ; Jerome) is most likely cypress.
The cm. \ey. gopher is related to 123, resin, and tcvTrdpio-aos ; it
is no proof to the contrary that in later Hebrew the cypress is
called berosh, for gopher belongs to the pre-Hebraic times. The
ark was to be made cells, i.e. divided into cells, D"»3j3 (lit. nests,
tiiduli, man siuncidce), and pitched ("IM denom. from "123) within
and without with copher, or asphalte (LXX. ao-cpaXros, 11/ A/.
bitumen). On the supposition, which is a very probable one,
that the ark was built in the form not of a ship, but of a chest,
with flat bottom, like a floating house, as it was not meant for
sailing, but merely to float upon the water, the dimensions,
300 cubits long, 50 broad, and 30 high, give a superficial area
of 15,000 square cubits, and a cubic measurement of 450,000
cubits, probably of the ordinary standard, " after the elbow
of a man" (Deut. iii. 11), i.e. measured from the elbow to
the end of the middle finger. — Ver. 16. " Light shalt thou
make to the ark, and in, a cubit from above shalt thou finish
it." As the meaning light for *in'x is established by the word
CHAP. VI. 9-22. 143
®?JW, " double-light " or mid-day, the passage can only signify
that a hole or opening for light and air was to be so constructed
as to reach within a cubit of the edge of the roof. A window
only a cubit square could not possibly be intended ; for *inx is
not synonymous with Ji?n (chap. viii. 6), but signifies, generally, a
space for light, or by which light could be admitted into the ark,
and in which the window, or lattice for opening and shutting,
could be fixed ; though we can form no distinct idea of what the
arrangement was. The door he was to place in the side ; and
to make " lower, second, and third (sc. cells)," i.e. three distinct
stories.1 — Vers. 17 sqq. Noah was to build this ark, because
God was about to bring a flood upon the earth, and would save
him, with his family, and one pair of every kind of animal.
TQftj (the flood), is an archaic word, coined expressly for the
waters of Noah (Isa. liv. 9), and is used nowhere else except
Ps. xxix. 10. H.N? ?J> Cft is in apposition to mabbul : " / bring
the flood, waters upon the earth, to desfroy all flesh, wherein is a
living breath" (i.e. man and beast). With Noah, God made a
covenant. On A*13 see chap. xv. 18. As not only the human
race, but the animal world also was to be preserved through Noah,
he was to take with him into the ark his wife, his sons and their
wives, and of every living thing, of all flesh, two of every sort, a
male and a female, to keep them alive ; also all kinds of food for
himself and family, and for the sustenance of the beasts. — Yer.
22. " Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded him"
(with regard to the building of the ark). Cf. Heb. xi. 7.
1 As the height of the ark was thirty cubits, the three stories of cells
can hardly have filled the entire space, since a room ten cubits high, or nine
cubits if we deduct the thickness of the floors, would have been a prodigality
of space beyond what the necessities required. It has been conjectured that
above or below these stories there was space provided for the necessary sup-
plies of food and fodder. At the same time, this is pure conjecture, like
every other calculation, not only as to the number and size of the cells, but
also as to the number of animals to be collected and the fodder they would
require. Hence every objection that has been raised to the suitability of
the structure, and the possibility of collecting all the animals in the ark and
providing them with food, is based upon arbitrary assumptions, and should
be treated as a perfectly groundless fancy. As natural science is still in the
dark as to the formation of species, and therefore not in a condition to
determine the number of pairs from which all existing species are descended,
it is ridiculous to talk, as P/ciff and others do, of 2000 species of mammalia,
and 6500 species of birds, which Noah would have had to feed every day.
144 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
HISTORY OF THE FLOOD. — CHAP. VII.-VIII. 19.
The account of the commencement, course, and termination
of the flood abounds in repetitions ; but although it progresses
somewhat heavily, the connection is well sustained, and no link
could be erased without producing a gap. — Vers. 1-16. When
the ark was built, and the period of grace (vi. 3) had passed,
Noah received instructions from Jehovah to enter the ark with
his family, and with the animals, viz. seven of every kind of
clean animals, and two of the unclean ; and was informed
that within seven days God would cause it to rain upon the
earth forty days and forty nights. The date of the flood is
then ffivcn (vcr. 6) : " Noali teas six hundred years old, and
the flood was (namely) icater upon the earth;" and the execu-
tion of the divine command is recorded in vers. 7-9. There
follows next the account of the bursting forth of the flood,
the date being given with still greater minuteness ; and the
entrance of the men and animals into the ark is again de-
scribed as being fully accomplished (vers. 10-10). — The fact
that in the command to enter the ark a distinction is now made
between clean and unclean animals, seven of the former being
ordered to be taken, — i.e. three pair and a single one, probably
a male for sacrifice, — is no more a proof of different authorship,
or of the fusion of two accounts, than the interchange of the
names Jehovah and Elohim. For the distinction between clean
and unclean animals did not originate with Moses, but was
confirmed by him as a long established custom, in harmony with
the law. It reached back to the very earliest times, and arose
from a certain innate feeling of the human mind, when undis-
turbed by unnatural and ungodly influences, which detects types
of sin and corruption in many animals, and instinctively recoils
from them (see my hiblisclie Archdologie ii. p. 20). That the
variations in the names of God furnish no criterion by which
to detect different documents, is evident enough from the fact,
that in chap. vii. 1 it is Jehovah who commands Noah to
enter the ark, ana in ver. 4 Noah does as Elohim had com-
manded, whilst in ver. 16, in two successive clauses, Elohim
alternates with Jehovah — the animals entering the ark at the
command of Elohim, and Jehovah shutting Noah in. With
regard to the entrance of the animals into the ark, it is worthy
CHAP. VII. 17-24. 145
of notice, that in vers. 9 and 15 it is stated that "they came two
and two" and in ver. 16 that "the coming ones came male and
female of all flesh." In this expression " they came " it is
clearly intimated, that the animals collected about Noah and
were taken into the ark, without his having to exert himself to
collect them, and that they did so in consequence of an instinct
produced by God, like that which frequently leads animals to
scent and try to flee from dangers, of which man has no pre-
sentiment. The time when the flood commenced is said to have
been the 600th year of Noah's life, on the 17th day of the second
month (ver. 11). The months must be reckoned, not accord-
ing to the Mosaic ecclesiastical year, which commenced in the
spring, but according to the natural or civil year, which com-
menced in the autumn at the beginning of sowing time, or the
autumnal equinox ; so that the flood would be pouring upon
the earth in October and November. " The same day were all
the fountains of the great deep (Dinn the unfathomable ocean)
broken up, and the sluices (windows, lattices) of heaven opened,
and there teas (happened, came) pouring rain (Q^Jl in distinction
from "IBO) upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights" Thus the
flood was produced by the bursting forth of fountains hidden
within the earth, which drove seas and rivers above their banks,
and by rain which continued incessantly for 40 days and 40
nights. — Ver. 13. " In the self-same day had Noah . . . entered
into the ark ;" N2, pluperfect "had come" not came, which would
require N3\ The idea is not that Noah, with his family and
all the animals, entered the ark on the very day on which
the rain began, but that on that day he had entered, had com-
pleted the entering, which occupied the seven days between the
giving of the command (ver. 4) and the commencement of the
flood (ver. 10).
Vers. 17-24 contain a description of the flood : how the
water increased more and more, till it was 15 cubits above all
the lofty mountains of the earth, and how, on the one hand, it
raised the ark above the earth and above the mountains, and,
on the other, destroyed every living being upon the dry land,
from man to cattle, creeping things, and birds. " The descrip-
tion is simple and majestic ; the almighty judgment of God,
and the love manifest in the midst of the wrath, hold the his-
torian fast. The tautologies depict the fearful monotony of the
146 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
immeasurable expanse of water: omnia pontus erant et deerant
litem p onto." The words of ver. 17, " and the flood teas (came)
upon the earth for forty days" relate to the 40 days' rain com-
bined with the bursting forth of the fountains beneath the earth.
By these the water was eventually raised to the height given,
at which it remained 150 days (ver. 24). But if the water
covered "all the high hills under the whole heaven" this clearly
indicates the universality of the flood. The statement, indeed,
that it rose 15 cubits above the mountains, is probably founded
upon the fact, that the ark drew 15 feet of water, and that when
the waters subsided, it rested upon the top of Ararat, from
which the conclusion would very naturally be drawn as to the
greatest height attained. Now as Ararat, according to the
measurements of Perrot, is only 16,254 feet high, whereas the
loftiest peaks of the Himalaya and Cordilleras are as much as
26,843, the submersion of these mountains has been thought
impossible, and the statement in ver. 19 has been regarded as a
rhetorical expression, like Deut. ii. 25 and iv. 19, which is not
of universal application. But even if those peaks, which are
higher than Ararat, were not covered by water, we cannot
therefore pronounce the flood merely partial in its extent, but
must regard it as universal, as extending over every part of
the world, since the few peaks uncovered would not only sink
into vanishing points in comparison with the surface covered,
but would form an exception not worth mentioning, for the
simple reason that no living beings could exist upon these
mountains, covered with perpetual snow and ice ; so that every-
thing that lived upon the dry land, in whose nostrils there was a
breath of life, would inevitably die, and, with the exception of
those shut up in the ark, neither man nor beast would be able
to rescue itself, and escape destruction. A flood which rose 15
cubits above the top of Ararat could not remain partial, if it
only continued a few days, to say nothing of the fact that the
water was rising for 40 days, and remained at the highest ele-
vation for 150 days. To speak of such a flood as partial is
absurd ; even if it broke out at only one spot, it would spread
over the earth from one end to the other, and reach everywhere
to the same elevation. However impossible, therefore, scientific
men may declare it to be for them to conceive of a universal
flood of such a height and duration in accordance with the
CHAP. VIII. 1-5. 147
known laws of nature, this inability on their part does not
justify any one in questioning the possibility of such an event
being produced by the omnipotence of God. It has been justly
remarked, too, that the proportion of such a quantity of water to
the entire mass of the earth, in relation to which the mountains
are but like the scratches of a needle on a globe, is no greater
than that of a profuse perspiration to the body of a man. And
to this must be added, that, apart from the legend of a flood,
which is found in nearly every nation, the earth presents un-
questionable traces of submersion in the fossil remains of ani-
mals and plants, which are found upon the Cordilleras and
Himalaya even beyond the limit of perpetual snow.1 In ver. 23,
instead of ns»l (jmperf. Niphcd) read no»1 {jmperf. Kal) : " and
He (Jehovah) destroyed every existing thing" as He had said in
ver. 4.
Chap. viii. 1-5. With the words, "then God remembered
Noah and all the animals . . . in the ark" the narrative turns
to the description of the gradual decrease of the water until the
ground was perfectly dry. The fall of the water is described
in the same pictorial style as its rapid rise. God's " remember-
ing" was a manifestation of Himself, an effective restraint of the
force of the raging element. He caused a wind to blow over
the earth, so that the waters sank, and shut up the fountains of
the deep, and the sluices of heaven, so that the rain from heaven
was restrained. " Tlien the waters turned (p®) i.e. flowed off)/rom
the earth, flowing continuously (the inf. absol. 3te'1 Tjipn expresses
continuation), and decreased at the end of 150 days." The de-
crease first became perceptible when the ark rested upon the
1 The geological facts which testify to the submersion of the entire
globe are collected in BucMaiuVs reliquiae diluv., Schubert's Gesch. der Natur,
and C. v. Raumer'ls Geography, and are of such importance that even Cuvier
acknowledged " Je pense done, avec MM. Deluc et Dolomieu, que s'il y a
quelque chose de constate en geologie ; e'est que la surface de notre globe a
ete victime d'une grande et subite re'volution, dont la date ne peut remonter
beaucoup au dela de cinq ou six mille ans " (Discours sur les revol. de la sur-
face du globe, p. 290, ed. 6). The latest phase of geology, however, denies
that these facts furnish any testimony to the historical character of the
flood, and substitutes the hypothesis of a submersion of the entire globe
before the creation of man : 1. because the animals found are very different
from those at present in existence ; and 2. because no certain traces have
hitherto been found of fossil human bones. "We have already shown that
there is no force in these arguments. Vid. Keerl, pp. 489 sqq.
148 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
mountains of Ararat on the 17th day of the seventh month; i.e.,
reckoning 30 days to a month, exactly 150 days after the flood
commenced. From that time forth it continued without inter-
mission, so that on the first day of the tenth month, probably 73
days after the resting of the ark, the tops of the mountains were
seen, viz. the tops of the Armenian highlands, by which the ark
was surrounded. Ararat was the name of a province (2 Kings
xix. 37), which is mentioned along with Minni (Armenia) as a
kingdom in Jer. li. 27, probably the central province of the
country of Armenia, which Moses v. Chorene calls Arairad,
Araratia. The mountains of Ararat are, no doubt, the group of
mountains which rise from the plain of the Araxes in two lofty-
peaks, the greater and lesser Ararat, the former 16,254 feet
above the level of the sea, the latter about 12,000. This land-
ing-place of the ark is extremely interesting in connection with
the development of the human race as renewed after the flood.
Armenia, the source of the rivers of paradise, has been called
" a cool, airy, well-watered mountain-island in the midst of the
old continent ; " but Mount Ararat especially is situated almost
in the middle, not only of the great desert route of Africa and
Asia, but also of the range of inland waters from Gibraltar to
the Baikal Sea — in the centre, too, of the longest line that can
be drawn through the settlements of the Caucasian race and the
Indo-Germanic tribes ; and, as the central point of the longest
land-line of the ancient world, from the Cape of Good Hope to
the Behring Straits, it was the most suitable spot in the world,
for the tribes and nations that sprang from the sons of Noah to
descend from its heights and spread into every land (via1. K. v.
Raumer, Paliist. pp. 456 sqq.).
Vers. 6-12. Forty days after the appearance of the mountain
tops, Noah opened the window of the ark and let a raven fly out
{lit. the raven, i.e. the particular raven known from that circum-
stance), for the purpose of ascertaining the drying up of the
waters. The raven went out and returned until the earth was
dry, but without being taken back into the ark, as the mountain
tops and the carcases floating upon the water afforded both rest-
ing-places and food. After that, Noah let a dove fly out three
times, at intervals of seven days. It is not distinctly stated that
he sent it out the first time seven days after the raven, but this
is implied in the statement that he stayed yet other seven days
CHAP. VIII. 13-19. 149
before sending it out the second time, and the same again be-
fore sending it the third time (vers. 10 and 12). The dove,
when first sent out, " found no rest for the sole of its foot ;" for
a dove will only settle upon such places and objects as are dry
and clean. It returned to the ark and let Noah take it in again
(vers. 8, 9). The second time it returned in the evening,
having remained out longer than before, and brought a fresh
( eptp freshly plucked) olive-leaf in its mouth. Noah perceived
from this that the water must be almost gone, had " abated from
off the earth," though the ground might not be perfectly dry, as
the olive-tree will put out leaves even under water. The fresh
olive-leaf was the first sign of the resurrection of the earth to
new life after the flood, and the dove with the olive-leaf a herald
of salvation. The third time it did not return ; a sign that the
waters had completely receded from the earth. The fact that
Noah waited 40 days before sending the raven, and after that
always left an interval of seven days, is not to be accounted for
on the supposition that these numbers were already regarded as
significant. The 40 days correspond to the 40 days during
which the rain fell and the waters rose ; and Noah might as-
sume that they would require the same time to recede as to rise.
The seven days constituted the week established at the creation,
and God had already conformed to it in arranging their entrance
into the ark (chap. vii. 4, 10). The selection which Noah
made of the birds may also be explained quite simply from the
difference in their nature, with which Noah must have been ac-
quainted ; that is to say, from the fact that the raven in seeking
its food settles upon every carcase that it sees, whereas the dove
will only settle upon what is dry and clean.
Vers. 13-19. Noah waited some time, and then, on the first
day of the first month, in the 601st year of his life, removed the
covering from the ark, that he might obtain a freer prospect over
the earth. He could see that the surface of the earth was dry ;
but it was not till the 27th day of the second month, 57 days,
therefore, after the removal of the roof, that the earth was com-
pletely dried up. Then God commanded him to leave the ark
with his family and all the animals ; and so far as the latter were
concerned, He renewed the blessing of the creation (ver. 17 cf. i.
22). As the flood commenced on the 17th of the second month
of the 600th year of Noah's life, and ended on the 27th of the
150 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
second month of the 601st year, it lasted a year and ten days ; but
whether a solar year of 360 or 365 days, or a lunar year of 352,
is doubtful. The former is the more probable, as the first five
months are said to have consisted of 150 days, which suits the
solar year better than the lunar. The question cannot be de-
cided with certainty, because we neither know the number of
days between the 17th of the seventh month and the 1st of the
tenth month, nor the interval between the sending out of the
dove and the 1st day of the first month of the 601st year.
noah's sacrifice, curse, AND BLESSING. — CHAP. VIII. 20-
IX. 29.
Two events of Noah's life, of world-wide importance, are re-
corded as having occurred after the flood : his sacrifice, with the
divine promise which followed it (chap. viii. 20-ix. 17) ; and the
prophetic curse and blessing pronounced upon his sons (ix. 18-
29).— Vers. 20-22. The first thing which M8$es did, was to
build an altar for burnt sacrifice, to thank the Lord for gracious
protection, and pray for His mercy in time to come. This
altar — 03TO, lit. a place for the offering of slain animals, from
niT, like Ovaiaarypcov from dvetv — is the first altar mentioned in
history. The sons of Adam had built no altar for their offerings,
because God was still present on the earth in paradise, so that
they could turn their offerings and hearts towards that abode.
But with the flood God had swept paradise away, withdrawn the
place of His presence, and set up His throne in heaven, from
which He would henceforth reveal Himself to man (cf. chap.
xi. 5, 7). In future, therefore, the hearts of the pious had to be
turned towards heaven, and their offerings and prayers needed
to ascend on high if they were to reach the throne of God. To
give this direction to their offerings, heights or elevated places
were erected, from which they ascended towards heaven in
fire. From this the offerings received the name of nVj? from
HPiy, the ascending, not so much because the sacrificial animals
ascended or were raised upon the altar, as because they rose
from the altar to heaven (cf. Judg. xx. 40; Jer. xlviii. 15;
Amos iv. 10). Noah took his offerings from every clean beast
and every clean fowl — from those animals, therefore, which were
destined for man's food ; probably the seventh of every kind,
CHAP. IX. 1-7. 151
which he had taken into the ark. " And Jehovah smelled the
smell of satisfactioyi" i.e. He graciously accepted the feelings of
the offerer which rose to Him in the odour of the sacrificial
flame. In the sacrificial flame the essence of the animal was
resolved into vapour; so that when man presented a sacrifice in
his own stead, his inmost being, his spirit, and his heart ascended
to God in the vapour, and the sacrifice brought the feeling of
his heart before God. This feeling of gratitude for gracious
protection, and of desire for further communications of grace,
was well-pleasing to God. He " said to His heart " (to, or in
Himself ; i.e. He resolved), " I will not again curse the ground any
more for man's sake, because the image '(i.e. the thought and
desire) of man!s heart is evil from his youth up (i.e. from the
very time when he begins to act with consciousness)." This
hardly seems an appropriate reason. As Luther says : u Hie
inconstantias videtur Deus accusari posse. Supra puniturus
hominem causam consilii dicit, quia figmentum cordis humani
malum est. Hie promissurus homini gratiam, quod posthac tali
ira uti nolit, eandem causam allegat." Both Luther and Calvin
express the same thought, though without really solving the
apparent discrepancy. It was not because the thoughts and
desires of the human heart are evil that God would not smite
any more every living thing, that is to say, would not extermi-
nate it judicially ; but because they are evil from his youth up,
because evil is innate in man, and for that reason he needs the
forbearance of God ; and also (and here lies the principal motive
for the divine resolution) because in the offering of the righteous
Noah, not only were thanks presented for past protection, and
entreaty for further care, but the desire of man was expressed,
to remain in fellowship with God, and to procure the divine
favour. " All the days of the earth" i.e. so long as the earth
shall continue, the regular alternation of day and night and of
the seasons of the year, so indispensable to the continuance of
the human race, would never be interrupted again.
Chap. ix. 1-7. These divine purposes of peace, which were
communicated to Noah while sacrificing, were solemnly con-
firmed by the renewal of the blessing pronounced at the creation
and the establishment of a covenant through a visible sign,
which would be a pledge for all time that there should never be
a flood again. In the words by which the first blessing was
152 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
transferred to Noah and his sons (ver. 2), the supremacy granted
to man over the animal world was expressed still more forcibly
than in chap. i. 26 and 28 ; because, inasmuch as sin with its
consequences had loosened the bond of voluntary subjection on
the part of the animals to the will of man, — man, on the one
hand, having lost the power of the spirit over nature, and nature,
on the other hand, having become estranged from man, or rather
having rebelled against him, through the curse pronounced upon
the earth, — henceforth it was only by force that he could rule
over it, by that "fear and dread" which God instilled into the
animal creation. Whilst the animals were thus placed in the
hand (power) of man, permission was also given to him to
slaughter them for food, the eating of the blood being the only
thing forbidden. Vers. 3, 4. " Every moving tiling that liveth shall
be food for you ; even as the green of the herb have I given you all
(?3"riX==P3n)." These words do not affirm that man then first
began to eat animal food, but only that God then for the first
time authorized, or allowed him to do, what probably he had
previously done in opposition to His will. " Only flesh in its
soul, its blood (iOT in apposition to i£;2?3), shall ye not eat;" i.e.
flesh in which there is still blood, because the soul of the animal
is in the blood. The prohibition applies to the eating of flesh
with blood in it, whether of living animals, as is the barbarous
custom in Abyssinia, or of slaughtered animals from which the
blood has not been properly drained at death. This prohibition
presented, on the one hand, a safeguard against harshness and
cruelty ; and contained, on the other, " an undoubted reference
to the sacrifice of animals, which was afterwards made the sub-
ject of command, and in which it was the blood especially that
was offered, as the seat and soul of life (see note on Lev. xvii.
11, 14); so that from this point of view sacrifice denotes the
surrender of one's own inmost life, of the very essence of life, to
God" (Ziegler). Allusion is made to the first again in the still
further limitation given in ver. 5 : " and only (^Sl) your blood,
with regard to your souls (? indicative of reference to an indivi-
dual object, Ewald, § 310a), will I seek (demand or avenge, cf.
Ps. ix. 13) from the hand of every beast, and from the hand of
man, from the hand of every one, his brother;" i.e. from every
man, whoever he may be, because he is his (the slain man's)
brother, inasmuch as all men are brethren. The life of man
CHAP. IX. 1-7. 153
was thus made secure against animals as well as men. God
would avenge or inflict punishment for every murder, — not
directly, however, as He promised to do in the case of Cain, but
indirectly by giving the command, " Whoso sheddeth mans blood,
by man shall his blood be shed," and thus placing in the hand of
man His own judicial power. " This was the first command,"
says Lather, " having reference to the temporal sword. By these
words temporal government was established, and the sword
placed in its hand by God." It is true the punishment of the
murderer is enjoined upon " man " universally ; but as all the
judicial relations and ordinances of the increasing race were
rooted in those of the family, and grew by a natural process out
of that, the family relations furnished of themselves the norm
for the closer definition of the expression "man." Hence the
command does not sanction revenge, but lays the foundation
for the judicial rights of the divinely appointed "powers that
be" (Rom. xiii. 1). This is evident from the reason appended:
" for in the image of God made He man." If murder was to
be punished with death because it destroyed the image of God
in man, it is evident that the infliction of the punishment was
not to be left to the caprice of individuals, but belonged to those
alone who represent the authority and majesty of God, i.e. the
divinely appointed rulers, who for that very reason are called
Elohim in Ps. Ixxxii. 6. This command then laid the founda-
tion for all civil government,1 and formed a necessary comple-
ment to that unalterable continuance of the order of nature
which had been promised to the human race for its further de-
velopment. If God on account of the innate sinfulness of man
would no more bring an exterminating judgment upon the
earthly creation, it was necessary that by commands and autho-
rities He should erect a barrier against the supremacy of evil,
and thus lay the foundation for a well-ordered civil develop-
ment of humanity, in accordance with the words of the blessing,
which are repeated in ver. 7, as showing the intention and goal
of this new historical beginning.
1 " Hie igitur fons est, ex quo manat totum jus civile et jus gentium.
Nam si Deus concedit homini potestatem super vitam et mortem, profecto
etiam concedit potestatem super id, quod minus est, ut sunt fortunse, fa-
milia, uxor, liberi, servi, agri ; Haec omnia vult certorum hominum potestati
esse obnoxia Deus, ut reos puniant." — Luther.
PENT. — VOL. I. L
151 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Vers. 8-17. To give Noah and his sons a firm assurance of
the prosperous continuance of the human race, God condescended
to establish a covenant with them and their descendants, and
to confirm this covenant by a visible sign for all generations.
n*"l3 D^pn is not equivalent to TVO rra ; it does not denote the
formal conclusion of an actual covenant, but the " setting up of
a covenant," or the giving of a promise possessing the nature of
a covenant. In summing up the animals in ver. 10, the pre-
positions are accumulated: first 3 embracing. the whole, then the
partitive }p restricting the enumeration to those which went out
of the ark, and lastly ?, u with regard to," extending it again
to every individual. There was a correspondence between the
covenant (ver. 11) and the sign which was to keep it before the
sight of men (ver. 12): u I give (set) My bow in the cloud" (ver.
13). When God gathers (}3y ver. 14, lit. clouds) clouds over
the earth, " the bow shall be seen in the cloud," and that not for
man only, but for God also, who will look at the bow, " to re-
member His everlasting covenant? An " everlasting covenant" is
a covenant u for perpetual generations" i.e. one which shall extend
to all ages, even to the end of the world. The fact that God
Himself would look at the bow and remember His covenant, was
" a glorious and living expression of the great truth, that God's
covenant signs, in which He has put His promises, are real
vehicles of His grace, that they have power and essential worth
not only with men, but also before God" (0. v. Gerlach). The
establishment of the rainbow as a covenant sign of the promise
that there should be no flood again, presupposes that it appeared
then for the first time in the vault and clouds of heaven. From
this it may be inferred, not that it did not rain before the flood,
which could hardly be reconciled with chap. ii. 5, but that the
atmosphere was differently constituted ; a supposition in perfect
harmony with the facts of natural history, which point to dif-
ferences in the climate of the earth's surface before and after the
flood. The fact that the rainbow, that " coloured splendour
thrown by the bursting forth of the sun upon the departing
clouds," is the result of the reciprocal action of light, and air,
and water, is no disproof of the origin and design recorded here.
For the laws of nature are ordained by God, and have their ulti
mate ground and purpose in the divine plan of the universe
which links together both nature and grace. " Springing as it
CHAP. IX. 18-29. 155
does from the effect of the sun upon the dark mass of clouds, it
typifies the readiness of the heavenly to pervade the earthly ;
spread out as it is between heaven and earth, it proclaims peace
between God and man ; and whilst spanning the whole horizon,
it teaches the all-embracing universality of the covenant of
grace" (Delitzsch).
Yers. 18-29. The second occurrence in the life of Noah after
the flood exhibited the germs of the future development of the
human race in a threefold direction, as manifested in the charac-
ters of his three sons. As all the families and races of man
descend from them, their names are repeated in ver. 18 ; and in
prospective allusion to what follows, it is added that " Ham was
the father of Canaan? From these three " the earth (the earth's
population) spread itself out." " The earth" is used for the popu-
lation of the earth, as in chap. x. 25 and xi. 1, and just as lands
or cities are frequently substituted for their inhabitants, nvsa :
probably Niphal for n¥s}, from pa to scatter (xi. 4), to spread out.
" And Noah the husbandman began, and planted a vineyard? As
noisn E^N cannot be the predicate of the sentence, on account of
t t-:t i- ' I
the article, but must be in apposition to Noah, V^} and ?nsl must
be combined in the sense of " began to plant" (Ges. § 142, 3).
The writer does not mean to affirm that Noah resumed his
agricultural operations after the flood, but that as a husband-
man he began to cultivate the vine ; because it was this which
furnished the occasion for the manifestation of that diversity in
the character of his sons, which was so eventful in its conse-
quences in relation to the future history of their descendants.
In ignorance of the fiery nature of wine, Noah drank and was
drunken, and uncovered himself in his tent (ver. 21). Although
excuse may be made for this drunkenness, the words of Luther
are still true : " Qui excusant patriarcham, volentes hanc consola-
tionem, quam Spiritus S. ecclesiis necessariam judicavit, abjiciunt,
quod scilicet etiam sununi sancti aliquando labuntur." This trifling
fall served to display the hearts of his sons. Ham saw the naked-
ness of his father, and told his two brethren without. Not con-
tent with finding pleasure himself in his father's shame, " nun-
quam enim vino victum patrem Jilius risisset, nisi pnus ejecisset
animo illam reverentiam et opinionem, quo3 in liberis de parentibus
ex mandato Dei existere debet" (Luther), he must proclaim his
disgraceful pleasure to his brethren, and thus exhibit his shame-
156 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
less sensuality. The brothers, on the contrary, with reverential
modesty covered their father with a garment (n?>?k>n the garment,
which was at hand), walking backwards that they might not see
his nakedness (ver. 23), and thus manifesting their childlike
reverence as truly as their refined purity and modesty. For
this they receive their father's blessing, whereas Ham reaped
for his son Canaan the patriarch's curse. In ver. 24 Ham is
called l|?pn iJ3 "his (Noah's) little son," and it is questionable
whether the adjective is to be taken as comparative in the sense
of " the younger," or as superlative, meaning " the youngest."
Neither grammar nor the usage of the language will enable us to
decide. For in 1 Sam. xvii. 14, where David is contrasted with
his brothers, the word means not the youngest of the four, but
the younger by the side of the three elder, just as in chap. i. 16
the sun is called "the great" light, and the moon " the little" light,
not to show that the sun is the greatest and the moon the least
of all lights, but that the moon is the smaller of the two. If, on
the other hand, on the ground of 1 Sam. xvi. 11, where "the
little one" undoubtedly means the youngest of all, any one would
press the superlative force here, he must be prepared, in order to
be consistent, to do the same with haggadol, " the great one," in
chap. x. 21, which would lead to this discrepancy, that in the verse
before us Ham is called Noah's youngest son, and in chap. x.
21 Shem is called Japhet's oldest brother, and thus implicite
Ham is described as older than Japhet. If we do not wish
lightly to introduce a discrepancy into the text of these two
chapters, no other course is open than to follow the LXX.,
Vulg. and others, and take " the little" here and " the great" in
chap. x. 21 as used in a comparative sense, Ham being represented
here as Noah's younger son, and Shem in chap. x. 21 as Japhet's
elder brother. Consequently the order in which the three names
stand is also an indication of their relative ages. And this is
not only the simplest and readiest assumption, but is even con-
firmed by chap, x., though the order is inverted there, Japhet
being mentioned first, then Ham, and Shem last ; and it is also
in harmony with the chronological datum in chap. xi. 10, as
compared with chap. v. 32 (yid. chap. xi. 10).
To understand the words of Noah with reference to his sons
(vers. 25-27), we must bear in mind, on the one hand, that as
the moral nature of the patriarch was transmitted by generation
CHAP. IX. 18-29. 157
to his descendants, so the diversities of character in the sons of
Noah foreshadowed diversities in the moral inclinations of the
tribes of which they were the head ; and on the other hand, that
Noah, through the Spirit and power of that God with whom he
walked, discerned in the moral nature of his sons, and the
different tendencies which they already displayed, the germinal
commencement of the future course of their posterity, and
uttered words of blessing and of curse, which were prophetic of
the history of the tribes that descended from them. In the sin
of Ham " there lies the great stain of the whole Hamitic race,
whose chief characteristic is sexual sin" (Ziegler); and the curse
which Noah pronounced upon this sin still rests upon the race.
It was not Ham who was cursed, however, but his son Canaan.
Ham had sinned against his father, and he was punished in his
son. But the reason why Canaan was the only son named, is
not to be found in the fact that Canaan was the youngest son of
Ham, and Ham the youngest son of Noah, as Hofmann sup-
poses. The latter is not an established fact; and the purely
external circumstance, that Canaan had the misfortune to be the
youngest son, could not be a just reason for cursing him alone.
The real reason must either lie in the fact that Canaan was
already walking in the steps of his father's impiety and sin, or
else be sought in the name Canaan, in which Noah discerned,
through the gift of prophecy, a significant omen ; a supposition
decidedly favoured by the analogy of the blessing pronounced
upon Japhet, which is also founded upon the name. Canaan
does not signify lowland, nor was it transferred, as many main-
tain, from the land to its inhabitants ; it was first of all the name
of the father of the tribe, from whom it was transferred to
his descendants, and eventually to the land of which they took
possession. The meaning of Canaan is " the submissive one,"
from W3 to stoop or submit, Hiphil, to bend or subjugate (Deut.
ix. 3 ; Judg. iv. 23, etc.). " Ham gave his son the name from
the obedience which he required, though he did not render it
himself. The son was to be the servant (for the name points to
servile obedience) of a father who was as tyrannical towards
those beneath him, as he was refractory towards those above.
The father, when he gave him the name, thought only of sub-
mission to his own commands. But the secret providence of
God, which rules in all such thing's, had a different submission
158 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
in view" (Hengstenberg, Christol.L 28, transl.). "Servant of
servants (i.e. the lowest of slaves, vid. Ewald, § 313) let him
become to his brethren." Although this curse was expressly
pronounced upon Canaan alone, the fact that Ham had no share
in Noah's blessing, either for himself or his other sons, was a
sufficient proof that his whole family was included by implica-
tion in the curse, even if it was to fall chiefly upon Canaan.
And history confirms the supposition. The Canaanites were
partly exterminated, and partly subjected to the lowest form of
slavery, by the Israelites, who belonged to the family of Shem ;
and those who still remained were reduced by Solomon to the
same condition (1 Kings ix. 20, 21). The Phoenicians, along
with the Carthaginians and the Egyptians, wTho all belonged to
the family of Canaan, were subjected by the Japhetic Persians,
Macedonians, and Romans ; and the remainder of the Hamitic
tribes either shared the same fate, or still sigh, like the negroes,
for example, and other African tribes, beneath the yoke of the
most crushing slavery. — Ver. 26. In contrast with the curse,
the blessings upon Shem and Japhet are introduced with a fresh
" and he said" whilst Canaan's servitude comes in like a refrain
and is mentioned in connection with both his brethren : " Blessed
be Jehovah, the God of Shem, and let Canaan he servant to them?
Instead of wishing good to Shem, Noah praises the God of
Shem, just as Moses in Deut. xxxiii. 20, instead of blessing Gad,
blesses Him " that enlargeth Gad," and points out the nature of
the good which he is to receive, by using the name Jehovah.
This is done "propter excellentem benedictionem. Non enim
loquitur de corporali benedictione, sed de benedictione futura per
semen promissum. Earn tantam videt esse ut e.rplicari verbis non
possit, ideo se vertit ad gratiarum actionem" (Luther). Because
Jehovah is the God of Shem, Shem will be the recipient and
heir of all the blessings of salvation, which God as Jehovah be-
stows upon mankind. Su7 — Dn? neither stands for the singular
V (Ges. § 103, 2), nor refers to Shem and Japhet. It serves to
show that the announcement does not refer to the personal relation
of Canaan to Shem, but applies to their descendants. — Ver. 27.
" Wide let God make it to Japhet, and let him dwell in the tents
of Shem." Starting from the meaning of the name, Noah
sums up his blessing in the word n& (japht), from nri3 to be wide
(Prov. xx. 19), in the Hiphil wit'h ?, to procure a wide space for
CHAP. IX. 18-29. 159
any one, used either of extension over a wide territory, or of
removal to a free, unfettered position; analogous to ?3*rnn, chap,
xxvi. 22 ; Ps. iv. 1, etc. Both allusions must be retained here,
so that the promise to the family of Japhet embraced not only
a wide extension, but also prosperity on every hand. This
blessing was desired by Noah, not from Jehovah, the God of
Shem, who bestows saving spiritual good upon man, but from
Elohim, God as Creator and Governor of the world ; for it had
respect primarily to the blessings of the earth, not to spiritual
blessings ; although Japhet would participate in these as well,
for he should come and dwell in the tents of Shem. The dis-
puted question, whether God or Japhet is to be regarded as the
subject of the verb " shall dwell," is already decided by the use
of the word Elohim. If it were God whom Noah described as
dwellingjn the tents of Shem, so that the expression denoted
the gracious presence of God in Israel, we should expect to find
the name Jehovah, since it was as Jehovah that God took up
His abode among Shem in Israel. It is much more natural* to
regard the expression as applying to Japhet, (a) because the
refrain, "Canaan shall be his servant," requires that we should
understand ver. 27 as applying to Japhet, like ver. 26 to
Shejn; (b) because the plural, tents, is not applicable to the
abode of Jehovah in Israel, inasmuch as in the parallel passages
" we read of God dwelling in His tent, on His holy hill, in Zion,
in the midst of the children of Israel, and also of the faithful
dwelling in the tabernacle or temple of God, but never of God
dwelling in the tents of Israel " (Hengstenberg) ; and (c) be-
cause we should expect the act of affection, which the two sons
so delicately performed in concert, to have its corresponding
blessing in the relation established between the two (Delitzsch).
Japhet's dwelling in the tents of Shem is supposed by Bochart
and others to refer to the fact, that Japhet's descendants would
one day take the land of the Shemites, and subjugate the
inhabitants; but even the fathers almost unanimously under-
stand the words in a spiritual sense, as denoting the participation
of the Japhetites in the saving blessings of the Shemites. There
is truth in both views. Dwelling presupposes possession ; but
the idea of taking by force is precluded by the fact, that it
would be altogether at variance with the blessing pronounced
upon Shem. If history shows that the tents of Shem were
1G0 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
conquered and taken by the Japhetites, the dwelling predicted
here still relates not to the forcible conquest, but to the fact that
the conquerors entered into the possessions of the conquered ;
that along with them they were admitted to the blessings of
salvation; and that, yielding to the spiritual power of the van-
quished, they lived henceforth in their tents as brethren (Ps.
cxxxiii. 1). And if the dwelling of Japhet in the tents of
Shem presupposes the conquest of the land of Shem by Japhet,
it is a blessing not only to Japhet, but to Shem also, since,
whilst Japhet enters into the spiritual inheritance of Shem, he
brings to Shem all the good of this world (Isa. lx.). " The ful-
filment," as Delitzsch says, "is plain enough, for we are all
Japhetites dwelling in the tents of Shem ; and the language of
the New Testament is the language of Javan entered into the
tents of Shem." To this we may add, that by the Gospel
preached in this language, Israel, though subdued by the
imperial power of Borne, became the spiritual conqueror of the
orbis terrarum Romanus, and received it into his tents. More-
over it is true of the blessing and curse of Noah, as of all pro-
phetic utterances, that they are fulfilled with regard to the
nations and families in question as a whole, but do not predict,
like an irresistible fate, the unalterable destiny of every indi-
vidual ; on the contrary, they leave room for freedom of per-
sonal decision, and no more cut off the individuals in the
accursed race from the possibility of conversion, or close the
way of salvation against the penitent, than they secure the indi-
viduals of the family blessed against the possibility of falling
from a state of grace, and actually losing the blessing. Hence,
whilst a Rahab and an Araunah were received into the fellow-
ship of Jehovah, and the Canaanitish woman was relieved by
the Lord because of her faith, the hardened Pharisees and
scribes had woes pronounced upon them, and Israel was
rejected because of its unbelief. In vers. 28, 29, the history of
Noah is brought to a close, with the account of his age, and of
his death.
CHAP. X. 161
IV. HISTORY OF THE SONS OF NOAH.
Chap, x.-xi. 9.
pedigree of the nations. — chap. x.
Of the sons of Noah, all that is handed down is the pedigree
of the nations, or the list of the tribes which sprang from them
(chap, x.), and the account of the confusion of tongues, together
with the dispersion of men over the face of the earth (chap. xi.
1-9) ; two events that were closely related to one another, and
of the greatest importance to the history of the human race and
of the kingdom of God. The genealogy traces the origin of the
tribes which were scattered over the earth ; the confusion of
tongues shows the cause of the division of the one human race
into many different tribes with peculiar languages.
The genealogy of the tribes is not an ethnographical myth, nor
the attempt of an ancient Hebrew to trace the connection of his
own people with the other nations of the earth by means of un-
certain traditions and subjective combinations, but a historical
record of the genesis of the nations, founded upon a tradition
handed down from the fathers, which, to judge from its contents,
belongs to the time of Abraham (cf. Havernick's Introduction
to Pentateuch, p. 118 sqq. transl.), and was inserted by Moses in
the early history of the kingdom of God on account of its uni-
versal importance in connection with sacred history. For it not
only indicates the place of the family which was chosen as the
recipient of divine revelation among the rest of the nations, but
traces the origin of the entire world, with the prophetical inten-
tion of showing that the nations, although they were quickly
suffered to walk in their own ways (Acts xiv. 16), were not in-
tended to be for ever excluded from the counsels of eternal
love. In this respect the genealogies prepare the way for the
promise of the blessing, which was one day to spread from the
chosen family to all the families of the earth (chap. xii. 2, 3). —
The historical character of the genealogy is best attested by the
contents themselves, since no trace can be detected, either of any
pre-eminence given to the Shemites, or of an intention to fill up
gaps by conjecture or invention. It gives just as much as had
1G2 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
been handed clown with regard to the origin of the different
tribes. Hence the great diversity in the lists of the descendants
of the different sons of Noah. Some are brought down only to
the second, others to the third or fourth generation, and some
even further ; and whilst in several instances the founder of a
tribe is named, in others we have only the tribes themselves ;
and in some cases we are unable to determine whether the names
given denote the founder or the tribe. In many instances, too,
on account of the defects and the unreliable character of the
accounts handed down to us from different ancient sources with
regard to the origin of the tribes, there are names which cannot
be identified with absolute certainty.1
Vers. 1-5. Descendants of Japjiet. — In ver. 1 the
names of the three sons are introduced according to their rela-
tive ages, to give completeness and finish to the Tholedoth; but
in the genealogy itself Japhet is mentioned first and Shem last,
according to the plan of the book of Genesis as already explained
at p. 37. In ver. 2 seven sons of Japhet are given. The names,
indeed, afterwards occur as those of tribes ; but here undoubt-
edly they are intended to denote the tribe-fathers, and may
without hesitation be so regarded. For even if in later times
many nations received their names from the lands of which they
took possession, this cannot be regarded as a universal rule, since
unquestionably the natural rule in the derivation of the names
would be for the tribe to be called after its ancestor, and for the
countries to receive their names from their earliest inhabitants.
Gomer is most probably the tribe of the Cimmerians, who dwelt,
according to Herodotus, on the Maeotis, in the Taurian Cher-
sonesus, and from whom are descended the Cumri or Cymry in
1 Sam. Bochart has brought great learning to the explanation of the table
of nations in Pltaleg, the first part of bis geographia sacra, to which Michaelis
and Rosenmuller made valuable additions, — the former in his spicil. geogr.
Hebr. ext. 17G9 and 1780, the latter in his Biblical Antiquities. Kitobel has
made use of all the modern ethnographical discoveries in his " Vb'.kertafel
der Genesis" (1850), but many of Ins combinations are very speculative.
Kiepert, in his article Marti, geograph. Stellung der nSrdlichen L&nder in der
phonikisch-hebrUischen Erdkunde (in the Monatsberichte d. Berliner Akad.
1859), denies entirely the ethnographical character of the table of nations,
and reduces it to a mere attempt on the part of the Phoenicians to account
for the geographical position of the nations with which they were acquainted.
CHAP. X. 1-5. 163
Wales and Brittany, whose relation to the Germanic Cimbri is
still in obscurity. Magog is connected by Josephus with the
Scythians on the Sea of Asof and in the Caucasus ; but Kiepert
associates the name with Macija or Maka, and applies it to Scy-
thian nomad tribes which forced themselves in between the Arian
or Arianized Medes, Kurds, and Armenians. Madai are the
Medes, called Mada on the arrow-headed inscriptions. Javan
corresponds to the Greek 'Ida>v, from whom the Ionians ('laoi/e?)
are derived, the parent tribe of the Greeks (in Sanskrit Javana,
old Persian Jund). Tubal and Meshech are undoubtedly the
Tibareni and Moschi, the former of whom are placed by Hero-
dotus upon the east of the Thermodon, the latter between the
sources of the Phasis and Cyrus. Tiros : according to Josephus,
the Thracians, whom Herodotus calls the most numerous tribe
next to the Indian. As they are here placed by the side of
Meshech, so we also find on the old Egyptian monuments Ma-
shuash and Tuirash, and upon the Assyrian Tubal and Misek
(Raiolinson). — Yer. 3. Descendants of Gomer. Ashkenaz: accord-
ing to the old Jewish explanation, the Germani; according to
Knobel, the family of Asi, which is favoured by the German
legend of Mannus, and his three sons, Jscus (Ask, ,AcrKdvio<;),
Ingus, and Hermino. Kiepert, however, and Bochart decide, on
geographical grounds, in favour of the Ascanians in Northern
Phrygia. Riphath : in Knobel s opinion the Celts, part of whom,
according to Plutarch, crossed the opy 'Plrraia, Monies Rhipaei,
towards the Northern Ocean to the furthest limits of Europe ;
but Josephus, whom Kiepert follows, supposed 'PifidOns to be
Paphlagonia. Both of these are very uncertain. Togarmah is
the name of the Armenians, who are still called the house of
TJwrgom or Torkomatsi. — Ver. 4. Descendants of Javan. Elishah
suggests Elis, and is said by Josephus to denote the ^Eolians, the
oldest of the Thessalian tribes, whose culture was Ionian in its
origin ; Kiepert, however, thinks of Sicily. Tarshish (in the
Old Testament the name of the colony of Tartessus in Spain) is
referred by Knobel to the Etruscans or Tyrsenians, a Pelasgic
tribe of Greek derivation ; but Delltzsch objects, that the Etrus-
cans were most probably of Lydian descent, and, like the Lydians
of Asia Minor, who were related to the Assyrians, belonged to
the Shemites. Others connect the name with Tarsus in Cilicia.
But the connection with the Spanish Tartessus must be retained.
164 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
although, so long as the origin of this colony remains in obscurity,
nothing further can be determined with regard to the name,
Kittim embraces not only the Citicei, Citienses in Cyprus, with
the town Cition, but, according to Knohel and Delitzsch, probably
" the Carians, who settled in the lands at the eastern end of the
Mediterranean Sea ; for which reason Ezekiel (xxvii. 6) speaks
of the " isles of Chittim." Dodanim (Dardani) : according to
Delitzsch, " the tribe related to the Ionians and dwelling with
them from the very first, which the legend has associated with
them in the two brothers Jasion and Dardanos;" according to
Knobel, " the whole of the Illyrian or north Grecian tribe." —
Ver. 5. " From these have the islands of the nations divided them-
selves in their lands ;" i.e. from the Japhetites already named, the
tribes on the Mediterranean descended and separated from one
another as they dwell in their lands, " every one after his tongue,
after their families, in their nations!'' The islands in the Old
Testament are the islands and coastlands of the Mediterranean,
on the European shore, from Asia Minor to Spain.
Vers. 6-20. Descendants of Ham. — Cash: the Ethiopians
of the ancients, who not only dwelt in Africa, but were scattered
over the whole of Southern Asia, and originally, in all probability,
settled in Arabia, where the tribes that still remained, mingled
with Shemites, and adopted a Shemitic language. Mizraim is
Egypt : the dual form was probably transferred from the land
to the people, referring, however, not to the double strip, i.e. the
two strips of land into which the country is divided by the Nile,
but to the two Egypts, Upper and Lower, two portions of the
country which differ considerably in their climate and general
condition. The name is obscure, and not traceable to any
Semitic derivation ; for the term "lfcflS in Isa. xix. 6, etc., is not to
be regarded as an etymological interpretation, but as a signifi-
cant play upon the word. The old Egyptian name is Kemi
(Copt. Chemi, Kerne), which, Plutarch says, is derived from the
dark ash-grey colour of the soil covered by the slime of the Nile,
but which it is much more correct to trace to Ham, and to re-
gard as indicative of the Hamitic descent of its first inhabitants.
Put denotes the Libyans in the wider sense of the term (old
Egypt. Phet ; Copt. Phaiat), who were spread over Northern
Africa as far as Mauritania, where even in the time of Jerome
CHAP. X. 8-12. 165
a river with the neighbouring district still bore the name of
Phut; cf. Bochart, Phal. iv. 33. On Canaan, see chap. ix. 25. —
Ver. 7. Descendants of Gush. Seba : the inhabitants of Meroe;
according to Knobel, the northern Ethiopians, the ancient
Blemmyer, and modern Bisharin. Havilah : the AvaXirat or
'AfiaXcrai of the ancients, the Macrobian Ethiopians in modern
Habesh. Sabtah : the Ethiopians inhabiting Hadhramaut,
whose chief city was called Sabatha or Sabota. Raamah :
'Pejf^d, the inhabitants of a city and bay of that name in south-
eastern Arabia (Oman). Sabtecah : the Ethiopians of Cara-
mania, dwelling to the east of the Persian Gulf, where the
ancients mention a seaport town and a river Ha/jLvSafcn. The
descendants of Raamah, Sheba and Dcdan, are to be sought in
the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf, "from which the
Sabsean and Dedanitic Cushites spread to the north-west, where
they formed mixed tribes with descendants of Joktan and Abra-
ham." See notes on ver. 28 and chap. xxv. 3.
Vers. 8-12. Besides the tribes already named, there sprang
from Cush Nimrod, the founder of the first imperial kingdom,
the origin of which is introduced as a memorable event into the
genealogy of the tribes, just as on other occasions memorable
events are interwoven with the genealogical tables (cf. 1 Chron.
ii. 7, 23, iv. 22, 23, 39-41).1 " Nimrod " began to be a mighty
one in the earth." "13| is used here, as in chap. vi. 4, to denote a
man who makes himself renowned for bold and daring deeds.
Nimrod was mighty in hunting, and that in opposition to Jeho-
vah (evavrtov Kvpcov, LXX.) ; not before Jehovah in the sense
of, according to the purpose and will of Jehovah, still less, like
Dw8? in Jonah hi. 3, or ra @e&3 in Acts vii. 20, in a simply
superlative sense. The last explanation is not allowed by the
usage of the language, the second is irreconcilable with the con-
text. The name itself, Nimrod from T]£>, " we will revolt,"
points to some violent resistance to God. It is so characteristic
that it can only have been given by his contemporaries, and
thus have become a proper name.2 In addition to this, Nimrod
1 These analogies overthrow the assertion that the verses before us have
been interpolated by the Jehovist into the Elohistic document ; since the
use of the name Jehovah is no proof of difference of authorship, nor the use
of "p* for T^in, as the former also occurs in vers. 13, 15, 24, and 26.
7 This was seen even by Perizonius (Origcj. Bafajl. p. 183), who says,
1GG THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES
as a mighty hunter founded a powerful kingdom ; and the
founding of this kingdom is shown by the verb *iTWI with i
consec. to have been the consequence or result of his strength in
hunting, so that the hunting was most intimately connected with
the establishment of the kingdom. Hence, if the expression " a
mighty hunter " relates primarily to hunting in the literal sense,
we must add to the literal meaning the figurative signification of
a " hunter of men " (" a trapper of men by stratagem and force,"
Herder) ; Nlmrod the hunter became a tyrant, a powerful
hunter of men. This course of life gave occasion to the pro-
verb, " like Nimrod, a mighty hunter against the Lord," which
immortalized not his skill in hunting beasts, but the success of his
hunting of men in the establishment of an imperial kingdom by
tyranny and power. But if this be the meaning of the proverb,
njn.'' ''.'??? " m the f ace °f Jehovah "• can only mean in defiance of
Jehovah, as Josephus and the Targums understand it. And the
proverb must have arisen when other daring and rebellious men
followed in Ni in rod's footsteps, and must have originated with
those who saw in such conduct an act of rebellion against the
God of salvation, in other words, with the possessors of the
divine promises of grace.1 — Ver. 10. "And the beginning of his
kingdom was Babel" the well-known city of Babylon on the
Euphrates, which from the time of Nimrod downwards has
been the symbol of the power of the world in its hostility to
God; — uand Erech" (Ope^, LXX.), one of the seats of the
Cutheans (Samaritans), Ezra iv. 9, no doubt Orchoe, situated,
according to Rawlinson, on the site of the present ruins of
Warka, thirty hours' journey to the south-east of Babel ; — and
Accad ('Ap^dS, LXX.), a place not yet determined, though,
judging from its situation between Erech and Calneh, it was not
" Crediderim hominem hunc utpote venatorem ferocem et sodalium comitatu
succiuctura semper in ore habuisse et ingeminasse, ad reliquos in rebellionem
excitandos, illud 7iimrod, nimrod, h.e. rebellemus, rebellemus, atque inde
postea ab aliis, etiarn ab ipso Mose, hoc vocabalo tanquain proprio nomine
deaignatum," and who supports las opinion by other similar instances in
history.
1 This view of Nimrod and his deeds is favoured by the Eastern legend,
which not only makes him the builder of the tower of Babel, which was to
reach to heaven, but has also placed him among the constellations of heaven
as a heaven-storming giant, who was chained by God in consequence. Vid.
Herzog's Real-Encycl. Art. Nimrod.
CHAP. X. 13, 14. 167
far from either, and Pressel is probably right in identifying it
with the ruins of Nifer, to the south of Hillah; — "and Calneh:"
this is found by early writers on the site of Ctesiphon, now a
great heap of ruins, twenty hours north-east of Babel. These
four cities were in the land of Shinar, i.e. of the province of
Babylon, on the Lower Euphrates and Tigris. — Vers. 11, 12.
From Sbinar Nimrod went to Assyria ("tt$K is the accusative of
direction), the country on the east of the Tigris, and there built
four cities, or probably a large imperial city composed of the
four cities named. As three of these cities — Rehoboth-Ir, i.e.
city markets (not " street-city," as Bunsen interprets it), Chelach,
and Resen — are not met with again, whereas Nineveh was re-
nowned in antiquity for its remarkable size (via1. Jonah iii. 3),
the words " this is the great city " must apply not to Resen, but
to Nineveh. This is grammatically admissible, if we regard the
last three names as subordinate to the first, taking i as the sign
of subordination (Ewald, § 339a), and render the passage thus :
" he built Nineveh, wTith Rehoboth-Ir, Cheloch, and Resen
between Nineveh and Chelach, this is the great city." From
this it follows that the four places formed a large composite city,
a large range of towns, to which the name of the (well-known)
great city of Nineveh was applied, in distinction from Nineveh
in the more restricted sense, with which Nimrod probably con-
nected the other three places so as to form one great capital,
possibly also the chief fortress of his kingdom on the Tigris.
These four cities most likely correspond to the ruins on the east
of the Tigris, which Bayard has so fully explored, viz. Nebhi
Yunus and Kouyunjik opposite to Mosul, Khorsabad five hours to
the north, and Nimrud eight hours to the south of Mosul.1
Vers. 13, 14. From Mizraim descended Ludim: not the
Semitic Ludim (ver. 22), but, according to Movers, the old tribe
of the Bewdtah dwelling on the Syrtes, according to others, the
Moorish tribes collectively. Whether the name is connected
with the Baud Jlurnen (Plin. v. 1) is uncertain; in any case
Knobel is wrong in thinking of Ludian Shemites, whether
Hyksos, who forced their way to Egypt, or Egyptianized
Arabians. Anamim: inhabitants of the Delta, according to
Knobel. He associates the 'Eve^enel/jb of the LXX. with
1 This supposition of Paiwlinson, Grote, M. v. Niebuhr, Knobel, Delitzsch,
and others, has recently been adopted by Ewald also.
168 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Sancmhit, or Northern Egypt : " tsanemhit, i.e. pars, regio sep-
teutrionis." Lchabim (= Lubim, Nahum iii. 9) are, according
to Joseplius, the Aiftves or Avfiies, not the great Libyan tribe
(Phut, ver. 6), which Nahum distinguishes from them, but the
Libyaegypt'd of the ancients. Naphtuchim: in KnobeVs opinion,
the Middle Egyptians, as the nation of Pthah, the god of Mem-
phis: but Bocliart is more probably correct in associating the name
with NicpOvs, in Pint, de Is., the northern coast line of Egypt.
Patlirusim : inhabitants of Pathros, IlaOovpr)^, Egypt. Petres,
land of the south ; i.e. Upper Egypt, the Thebais of the ancients.
Caslucliim: according to general admission the Colchians, who
descended from the Egyptians (Herod, ii. 104), though the
connection of the name with Cassiotis is uncertain. " From
thence (i.e. from Casluchim, which is the name of both people
and country) proceeded the Philistines." Philistim, LXX. $v\-
io-Tiei/jb or 'AWocfivXot, lit. emigrants or immigrants from the
Ethiopic falldsa. This is not at variance with Amos ix. 7 and
Jer. xlvii. 4, according to which the Philistines came from
Caphtor, so that there is no necessity to transpose the relative
clause after Philistim. The two statements may be reconciled
on the simple supposition that the Philistian nation was primarily
a Casluchian colony, which settled on the south-eastern coast
line of the Mediterranean between Gaza (ver. 19) and Pelu-
sium, but was afterwards strengthened by immigrants from
Caphtor, and extended its territory by pressing out the Avim
(Deut. ii. 23, cf. Josh. xiii. 3). Caphtorim : according to the
old Jewish explanation, the Cappadocians ; but according to
Lakemacher's opinion, which has been revived by Ewald, etc.,
the Cretans. This is not decisively proved, however, either by
the name Cherethites, given to the Philistines in 1 Sam. xxx.
14, Zeph. ii. 5, and Ezek. xxv. 16, or by the expression " isle
of Caphtor" in Jer. xlvii. 4. — Vers. 15 sqq. From Canaan de-
scended "Zidon his first-boim, and Heth." Although Zidon
occurs in ver. 19 and throughout the Old Testament as the
name of the oldest capital of the Phoenicians, here it must be
regarded as the name of a person, not only because of the apposi-
tion u his first-born" and the verb 1?J, "begat" but also because
the name of a city does not harmonize witli the names of the
other descendants of Canaan, the analogy of which would lead
us to expect the nomen gentile " Sidonian" (Judg. iii. 3, etc.);
CHAP. X. 13, 14. 109
and lastly, because the word Zidon, from Tfif to hunt, to catch,
is not directly applicable to a sea-port and commercial town,
and there are serious objections upon philological grounds to
Justin s derivation, " quam a piscium ubertate Sidona appellave-
runt, nampiscem Phcenices Sidon vocant" (yar. hist. 18, 3). Heth
is also the name of a person, from which the term Hittite (xxv.
9 ; Num. xiii. 29), equivalent to " sons of Heth" (chap, xxiii. 5),
is derived. " The Jebusite :" inhabitants of Jebus, afterwards
called Jerusalem. " The Amorite :" not the inhabitants of the
mountain or heights, for the derivation from "T'EK, " summit" is
not established, but a branch of the Canaanites, descended from
Emor (Amor), which was spread far and wide over the moun-
tains of Judah and beyond the Jordan in the time of Moses, so
that in chap. xv. 16, xlviii. 22, all the Canaanites are compre-
hended by the name. " The Girgashites" Tepyeo-alos (LXX.),
are also mentioned in chap. xv. 21, Deut. vii. 1, and Josh. xxiv.
11; but their dwelling-place is unknown, as the reading Tepye-
cnqvoi in Matt. viii. 28 is critically suspicious. " The Hivites"
dwelt in Sichem (xxxiv. 2), at Gibeon (Josh. ix. 7), and at the
foot of Hermon (Josh xi. 3) ; the meaning of the word is un-
certain. "The Arkites:" inhabitants of 'Apicri, to the north of
Tripolis at the foot of Lebanon, the ruins of which still exist
(vid. Robinson). " The Sinite :" the inhabitants of Sin or Sinna,
a place in Lebanon not yet discovered. " The Arvadite" or
A?,adians, occupied from the eighth century before Christ, the
small rocky island of Arados to the north of Tripolis. " The
Zemarite:" the inhabitants of Simyra in Eleutherus. " The
Hamathite : " the inhabitants or rather founders of Hamath on
the most northerly border of Palestine (Num. xiii. 21, xxxiv. 8),
afterwards called Epiphania, on the river Orontes, the present
Hamdh, with 100,000 inhabitants. The words in ver. 18, "arid
afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad"
mean that they all proceeded from one local centre as branches
of the same tribe, and spread themselves over the country, the
limits of which are given in two directions, with evident refer-
ence to the fact that it was afterwards promised to the seed of
Abraham for its inheritance, viz. from north to south, — " from
Sidon, in the direction (lit. as thou comest) toioards Gerar (see
chap. xx. 1), unto Gaza" the primitive Avvite city of the Philis-
tines (Deut. ii. 23), now called Guzzeh, at the S.W. corner of
PENT. VOL. I. M
170 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Palestine, — and thence from west to east, uin the direction towards
Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zehoim (see xix. 24) to Lesha"
i.e. Calirrhoe, a place with sulphur baths, on the eastern side of
the Dead Sea, in Wady Serka Maein (Seetzen and Hitter).
Vers. 21-32. Descendants of Shem. — Ver. 21. For the
construction, vid. chap. iv. 26. Shem is called the father of all
the sons of Eber, because two tribes sprang from Eber through
Peleg and Joktan, viz. the Abrahamides, and also the Arabian
tribe of the Joktanides (vers. 26 sqq.). — On the expression,
" the 'brother of Japhet Tfajn ," see chap. ix. 24. The names of
the five sons of Shem occur elsewhere as the names of tribes
and countries; at the same time, as there is no proof that
in any single instance the name was transferred from the
country to its earliest inhabitants, no Avell-grounded objection
can be offered to the assumption, which the analogy of the other
descendants of Shem renders probable, that they were originally
the names of individuals. As the name of a people, Elam de-
notes the Elymceans, who stretched from the Persian Gulf to
the Caspian Sea, but who are first met with as Persians no
longer speaking a Semitic language. Asshur: the Assyrians
who settled in the country of Assyria, ' 'Arovpla, to the east of
the Tigris, but who afterwards spread in the direction of Asia
Minor. Arphaxad: the inhabitants of ^Appaira^ri^ in nor-
thern Assyria. The explanation given of the name, viz.
" fortress of the Chaldeans" (Ewald), " highland of the Chal-
deans " (Knobel), " territory of the Chaldeans" (Dietrich), are
very questionable. Lud: the Lydians of Asia Minor, whose
connection with the Assyrians is confirmed by the names of the
ancestors of their kings. Aram: the ancestor of the Aramo?ans
of Syria and Mesopotamia. — Ver 23. Descendants of Aram. Uz:
a name which occurs among the Nahorides (chap. xxii. 21) and
Horitcs (xxxvi. 28), and which is associated with the Alalrai
of Ptolemy, in Arabia deserta towards Babylon : this is favoured
by the fact that Uz, the country of Job, is called by the LXX.
X<copa AvalTiq, although the notion that these Aesites were an
Aramaean tribe, afterwards mixed up with Nahorides and Hor-
ites, is mere conjecture. IIul: Delitzsch associates this with
Cheli (Cheri), the old Egyptian name for the Syrians, and the
Hylatoi who dwelt near the Emesenes (Plin. 5, 19). G ether he
CHAP. X. 21-32. 171
connects with the name given in the Arabian legends to the
ancestor of the tribes Themud and Ghadis. Mash: for which we
find Meshech in 1 Chron. i. 17, a tribe mentioned in Ps. cxx. 5
along with Kedar, and since the time of Bochart generally asso-
ciated with the 6'po? Mdaiov above Nisibis. — Ver. 25. Among
the descendants of Arphaxad, Eber's eldest son received the
name of Peleg, because in his days the earth, i.e. the population
of the earth, was divided, in consequence of the building of the
tower of Babel (xi. 8). His brother Joktan is called Kachtan
by the Arabians, and is regarded as the father of all the primi-
tive tribes of Arabia. The names of his sons are given in vers.
26-29. There are thirteen of them, some of which are still
retained in places and districts of Arabia, whilst others are not
yet discovered, or are entirely extinct. Nothing certain has
been ascertained about Almodad, Jerah, Diklah, Obal, Abimael,
and Jobab. Of the rest, Sheleph is identical with Salif or
Sulaf (in Ptol. 6, 7, XaXair7}voi), an old Arabian tribe, also a
district of Yemen. Hazarmaveth {i.e. forecourt of death) is
the Arabian Hadhramaut in South-eastern Arabia on the
Indian Ocean, whose name Jauhari is derived from the un-
healthiness of the climate. Hadoram: the ' ASpafUTcu of Ptol.
6, 7, Atramitce of Plin. 6, 28, on the southern coast of Arabia.
Uzal: one of the most important towns of Yemen, south-west of
Mareb. Sheba: the Sabceans, with the capital Saba or Mareb,
Mariaba regia (Plin.), whose connection with the Cushite (ver.
7) and A brahamite Sabaeans (chap. xxv. 3) is quite in obscurity.
Ophir has not yet been discovered in Arabia ; it is probably to
be sought on the Persian Gulf, even if the Ophir of Solomon
was not situated there. Havilah appears to answer to Chaulaw
of Edrisi, a district between Sanaa and Mecca. But this dis-
trict, which lies in the heart of Yemen, does not fit the account
in 1 Sam. xv. 7, nor the statement in chap. xxv. 18, that
Havilah formed the boundary of the territory of the Ishmaelites.
These two passages point rather to XavXoralot, a place on the
border of Arabia Petraea towards Yemen, between the Naba-
taeans and Hagrites, which Strabo describes as habitable. — Ver.
30. The settlements of these Joktanides lay " from Mesha
towards Sephar the mountain of the EastP Mesha is still un-
known : according to Gesenius, it is Mesene on the Persian Gulf,
and in Knobel's opinion, it is the valley of Bisha or Beishe in the
172 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
north of Yemen ; but both are very improbable. Sephar is sup-
posed by Mesnel to be the ancient Himyaritish capital, Shafdr,
on the Indian Ocean; and the mountain of the East, the moun-
tain of incense, which is situated still farther to the east. — The
genealogy of the Shemites closes with ver. 31, and the entire
genealogy of the nations with ver. 32. According to the Jewish
Midrash, there are seventy tribes, with as many different lan-
guages; but this number can only be arrived at by reckoning Nim-
rod among the Hamites, and not only placing Peleg among the
Shemites, but taking his ancestors Salah and Eber to be names
of separate tribes. By this we obtain for Japhet 14, for Ham
31, and for Shem 25, — in all 70 names. The Rabbins, on the
other hand, reckon 14 Japhetic, 30 Hamitic, and 26 Semitic
nations ; whilst the fathers make 72 in all. But as these calcu-
lations are perfectly arbitrary, and the number 70 is nowhere
given or hinted at, we can neither regard it as intended, nor
discover in it " the number of the divinely appointed varieties of
the human race," or " of the cosmical development," even if the
seventy disciples (Luke x. 1) were meant to answer to the
seventy nations whom the Jews supposed to exist upon the earth.
— Ver. 32. The words, "And by these were the natio?is of the
earth divided in the earth after the flood" prepare the way for the
description of that event which led to the division of the one
race into many nations with different languages.
THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES. — CHAP. XI. 1-9.
Ver. 1. " And the whole earth {i.e. the population of the
earth, vid. chap. ii. 19) was one lip and one kind of icords ;"
unius labii eorundemque verborum. The unity of language of the
whole human race follows from the unity of its descent from one
human pair (vid. ii. 22). But as the origin and formation of the
races of mankind are beyond the limits of empirical research, so
no philology will ever be able to prove or deduce the original
unity of human speech from the languages which have been
historically preserved, however far comparative grammar may
proceed in establishing the genealogical relation of the languages
of different nations. — Vers. 2 sqq. As men multiplied they moved
from the land of Ararat " eastioard" or more strictly to the
south-east, and settled in a plain, nypa does not denote a valley
CHAP. XI. 1-9. 173
between mountain ranges, but a broad plain, irehiov fieya, as
Herodotus calls the neighbourhood of Babylon. There they
resolved to build an immense tower ; and for this purpose they
made bricks and burned them thoroughly (p^W? " to burning "
serves to intensify the verb like the inf. absol.), so that they
became stone ; whereas in the East ordinary buildings are con-
structed of bricks of clay, simply dried in the sun. For mortar
they used asphalt, in which the neighbourhood of Babylon
abounds. From this material, which may still be seen in the
ruins of Babylon, they intended to build a city and a tower,
whose top should be in heaven, i.e. reach to the sky, to make to
themselves a name, that they might not be scattered over the
whole earth. DE> v nby denotes, here and everywhere else, to
establish a name, or reputation, to set up a memorial (Isa. Ixiii.
12, 14; Jer. xxxii. 20, etc.). The real motive therefore was the
desire for renown, and the object was to establish a noted cen-
tral point, which might serve to maintain their unity. The one
was just as ungodly as the other. For, according to the divine
purpose, men were to fill the earth, i.e. to spread over the whole
earth, not indeed to separate, but to maintain their inward unity
notwithstanding their dispersion. But the fact that they were
afraid of dispersion is a proof that the inward spiritual bond of
unity and fellowship, not only " the oneness of their God and
their worship," but also the unity of brotherly love, was already
broken by sin. Consequently the undertaking, dictated by pride,
to preserve and consolidate by outward means the unity which
was inwardly lost, could not be successful, but could only bring
down the judgment of dispersion. — Vers. 5 sqq. " Jehovah came
down to see the city and the toiver, which the children of men had
built " (the perfect W3 refers to the building as one finished up
to a certain point). Jehovah's " coming down " is not the same
here as in Ex. xix. 20, xxxiv. 5, Num. xi. 25, xii. 5, viz. the
descent from heaven of some visible symbol of His presence, but
is an anthropomorphic description of God's interposition in the
actions of men, primarily a " judicial cognizance of the actual
fact," and then, ver. 7, a judicial infliction of punishment. The
reason for the judgment is given in the word, i.e. the sentence,
which Jehovah pronounces upon the undertaking (ver. 6) : " Be-
hold one people (DV lit. union, connected whole, from DDy to
bind) and one language have they all, and this (the building
174 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
of this city and tower) is (only) the beginning of their deeds ;
and now (sc. when they have finished this) nothing icill be im-
possible to them (Dnft "IV3? &6 lit. cut off from them, prevented)
which they purpose to do " (W for *E>fj from COT, see chap. ix. 19).
By the firm establishment of an ungodly unity, the wickedness
and audacity of men would have led to fearful enterprises. But
God determined, by confusing their language, to prevent the
heightening of sin through ungodly association, and to frustrate
their design. " Up" (n^n "go to," in ironical imitation of the
same expression in vers. 3 and 4), " We will go dozen, and there
confound their language (on the plural, see chap. i. 26 ; ^Jl) for
np3, Kal from «v3, like )W in ver. 6), that they may not under-
stand one another s speech" The execution of this divine purpose
is given in ver. 8, in a description of its consequences : " Jehovah
scattered them abroad from thence zipon the face of all the earth,
and they left off building the city.'" We must not conclude from
this, however, that the differences in language were simply the
result of the separation of the various tribes, and that the latter
arose from discord and strife ; in which case the confusion of
tongues would be nothing more than " dissensio animorum, per
quam factum sit, ut qui turrem strziebant distracti sint in contraria
studia et consilia" (Vitringa). Such a view not only does vio-
lence to the words " that one may not discern (understand) the Up
(language) of the other" but is also at variance with the object
of the narrative. When it is stated, first of all, that God re-
solved to destroy the unity of lips and words by a confusion of
the lips, and then that He scattered the men abroad, this act of
divine judgment cannot be understood in any other way, than
that God deprived them of the ability to comprehend one
another, and thus effected their dispersion. The event itself
cannot have consisted merely in a change of the organs of speech,
produced by the omnipotence of God, whereby speakers were
turned into stammerers who were unintelligible to one another.
This opinion, which is held by Vitringa and Hofmann, is neither
reconcilable with the text, nor tenable as a matter of fact. The
differences, to which this event gave rise, consisted not merely in
variations of sound, such as might be attributed to differences in
the formation in the organs of speech (the lip or tongue), but
had a much deeper foundation in the human mind. If language
is the audible expression of emotions, conceptions, and thoughts
CHAP. XI. 1-9. 175
of the mind, the cause of the confusion or division of the one
human language into different national dialects must be sought
in an effect produced upon the human mind, by which the origi-
nal unity of emotion, conception, thought, and will was broken
up. This inward unity had no doubt been already disturbed by
sin, but the disturbance had not yet amounted to a perfect
breach. This happened first of all in the event recorded here,
through a direct manifestation of divine power, which caused the
disturbance produced by sin in the unity of emotion, thought,
and will to issue in a diversity of language, and thus by a
miraculous suspension of mutual understanding frustrated the
enterprise by which men hoped to render dispersion and estrange-
ment impossible. More we cannot say in explanation of this
miracle, which lies before us in the great multiplicity and variety
of tongues, since even those languages which are genealogically
related — for example, the Semitic and Indo-Germanic — were
no longer intelligible to the same people even in the dim prime-
val age, whilst others are so fundamentally different from one
another, that hardly a trace remains of their original unity.
With the disappearance of unity the one original language was
also lost, so that neither in the Hebrew nor in any other lan-
guage of history has enough been preserved to enable us to form
the least conception of its character.1 The primitive language
is extinct, buried in the materials of the languages of the nations,
to rise again one day to eternal life in the glorified form of the
KaivaX <y\c5aacu intelligible to all the redeemed, when sin with
its consequences is overcome and extinguished by the power of
grace. A type and pledge of this hope was given in the gift of
tongues on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church
1 The opinion of the Rabbins and earlier theologians, that the Hebrew
was the primitive language, has been generally abandoned in consequence of
modern philological researches. The fact that the biblical names handed
down from the earliest times are of Hebrew extraction proves nothing.
"With the gradual development and change of language, the traditions with
their names were cast into the mould of existing dialects, without thereby-
affecting the truth of the tradition. For as Drechster has said, " it makes
no difference whether I say that Adam's eldest son had a name correspond-
ing to the name Cain from mp, or to the name Ctesias from x.rxa0oci ; the
truth of the Thorah, which presents us with the tradition handed down from
the sons of Noah through Shem to Abraham and Israel, is not a verbal, but
a living tradition — is not in the letter, but in the spirit."
176 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
on the first Christian day of Pentecost, when the apostles, filled
with the Holy Ghost, spoke with other or new tongues of "the
wonderful works of God," so that the people of every nation
under heaven understood in their own language (Acts ii. 1-11).
From the confusion of tongues the city received the name
Babel (?3? i-e. confusion, contracted from ?2?? from ??3 to con-
fuse), according to divine direction, though without any such
intention on the part of those who first gave the name, as a
standing memorial of the judgment of God which follows all
the ungodly enterprises of the power of the world.1 Of this
city considerable ruins still remain, including the remains of an
enormous tower, Blrs Nimrud, which is regarded by the Arabs
as the tower of Babel that was destroyed by fire from heaven.
Whether these ruins have any historical connection with the
tower of the confusion of tongues, must remain, at least for the
present, a matter of uncertainty. With regard to the date of
the event, we find from ver. 10 that the division of the human
race occurred in the days of Peleg, who was born 100 years
after the flood. In 150 or 180 years, with a rapid succession of
births, the descendants of the three sons of Noah, who were
already 100 years old and married at the time of the flood,
might have become quite numerous enough to proceed to the
erection of such a building. If we reckon, for example, only
four male and four female births as the average number to each
marriage, since it is evident from chap. xi. 12 sqq. that chil-
dren were born as early as the 30th or 35th year of their parent's
age, the sixth generation would be born by 150 years after the
flood, and the human race would number 12,288 males and as
many females. Consequently there would be at least about
30,000 people in the world at this time.
1 Such explanations of the name as " gate, or house, or fortress of Bel,"
are all the less worthy of notice, because the derivation «d zov Bfaov in
the Etymol. magn., and in Persian and Nabatean works, is founded upon the
myth, that Bel was the founder of the city. And as this myth is destitute
of historical worth, so is also the legend that the city was built by Semi-
ramis, which may possibly have so much of history as its basis, that this
half-mythical queen extended and beautified the city, just as Nebuchad-
nezzar added a new quarter, and a second fortress, and strongly fortified it.
CHAP. XI. 10—26. 177
V. HISTORY OF SHEM.
Chap. xi. 10-26.
After describing the division of the one family which sprang
from the three sons of Noah, into many nations scattered over
the earth and speaking different languages, the narrative returns
to Shem, and traces his descendants in a direct line to Terah the
father of Abraham. The first five members of this pedigree have
already been given in the genealogy of the Shemites ; and in that
case the object was to point out the connection in which all the
descendants of Eber stood to one another. They are repeated
here to show the direct descent of the Terahites through Peleg
from Shem, but more especially to follow the chronological
thread of the family line, which could not be given in the gene-
alogical tree without disturbing the uniformity of its plan. By
the statement in ver. 10, that " Shem, a hundred years old, begat
Arphaxad two years after the flood" the chronological data
already given of Noah's age at the birth of his sons (chap. v. 32)
and at the commencement of the flood (vii. 11) are made still
more definite. As the expression "after the flood" refers to the
commencement of the flood (chap. ix. 28), and according to chap,
vii. 11 the flood began in the second month, or near the begin-
ning of the six hundredth year of Noah's life, though the year
600 is given in chap. vii. 6 in round numbers, it is not necessary
to assume, as some do, in order to reconcile the difference between
our verse and chap. v. 32, that the number 500 in chap. v. 32
stands as a round number for 502. On the other hand, there
can be no objection to such an assumption. The different state-
ments may be easily reconciled by placing the birth of Shem at
the end of the five hundredth year of Noah's life, and the birth
of Arphaxad at the end of the hundredth year of that of Shem ;
in which case Shem would be just 99 years old when the flood
began, and would be fully 100 years old " two years after the
flood," that is to say, in the second year from the commencement
of the flood, when he begat Arphaxad. In this case the " two
years after the flood" are not to be added to the sum-total of the
chronological data, but are included in it. The table given here
forms in a chronological and material respect the direct con-
178 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
tinuation of the one in chap, v., and differs from it only in form,
viz. by giving merely the length of life of the different fathers
before and after the birth of their sons, without also summing
up the whole number of their years as is the case there, since
this is superfluous for chronological purposes. But on comparing
the chronological data of the two tables, we find this very im-
portant difference in the duration of life before and after the
flood, that the patriarchs after the flood lived upon an average
only half the number of years of those before it, and that with
Peleg the average duration of life was again reduced by one
half. Whilst Noah with his 950 years belonged entirely to the
old world, and Shem, who was born before the flood, reached
the age of 600, Arphaxad lived only 438 years, Salah 433, and
Eber 464 ; and again, with Peleg the duration of life fell to 239
years, Reu also lived only 239 years, Serug 230, and Nahor not
more than 148. Here, then, we see that the two catastrophes,
the flood and the separation of the human race into nations,
exerted a powerful influence in shortening the duration of life ;
the former by altering the climate of the earth, the latter by
changing the habits of men. But while the length of life
diminished, the children were born proportionally earlier. Shem
begat his first-born in his hundredth year, Arphaxad in the thirty-
fifth, Salah in the thirtieth, and so on to Terah, who had no
children till his seventieth year ; consequently the human race,
notwithstanding the shortening of life, increased with sufficient
rapidity to people the earth very soon after their dispersion.
There is nothing astonishing, therefore, in the circumstance, that
wherever Abraham went he found tribes, towns, and kingdoms,
though only 365 years had elapsed since the flood, when we con-
sider that eleven generations would have followed one another
in that time, and that, supposing every marriage to have been
blessed with eight children on an average (four male and four
female), the eleventh generation would contain 12,582,912
couples, or 25,165,824 individuals. And if we reckon ten chil-
dren as the average number, the eleventh generation would con-
tain 146,484,375 pairs, or 292,968,750 individuals. In neither
of tltese cases have we included such of the earlier generations
as would be still living, although their number would be by no
means inconsiderable, since nearly all the patriarchs from Shem
to Terah were alive at the time of Abram's migration. In ver.
CHAP. XI. 27-32. 179
26 the genealogy closes, like that in chap. v. 32, with the names
of three sons of Terah, all of whom sustained an important rela-
tion to the subsequent history, viz. Abram as the father of the
chosen family, Nahor as the ancestor of Rebekah (cf. ver. 29 with
chap. xxii. 20-23), and Haran as the father of Lot (ver. 27).
VI. HISTOEY OF TERAH.
Chap. xi. 27-xx:v. 11.
family of terah. chap. xi. 27-32.
The genealogical data in vers. 27-32 prepare the way for
the history of the patriarchs. The heading, " These are the gene-
rations of Terah" belongs not merely to vers. 27-32, but to the
whole of the following account of Abram, since it corresponds to
" the generations" of Ishmael and of Isaac in chap. xxv. 12 and 19.
Of the three sons of Terah, who are mentioned again in ver. 27
to complete the plan of the different Toledoth, such genealogical
notices are given as are of importance to the history of Abram and
his family. According to the regular plan of Genesis, the fact that
Haran the youngest son of Terah begat Lot, is mentioned first
of all, because the latter went with Abram to Canaan ; and then
the fact that he died before his father Terah, because the link
which would have connected Lot with his native land was broken
in consequence. " Before his father" *3B ?V lit. upon the face
of his father, so that he saw and survived his death. Ur of the
Chaldees is to be sought either in the " Ur nomine persicnm castel-
lum" of Ammian (25, 8), between Hatra and Nisibis, near Arra-
pachitis, or in Orhoi, Armenian Urrhai, the old name for Edessa,
the modern Urfa. — Ver. 29. Abram and Nahor took wives from
their kindred. Abram married Sarai, his half-sister (xx. 12), of
whom it is already related, in anticipation of what follows, that
she was barren. Nahor married Milcah, the daughter of his
brother Haran, who bore to him Bethuel, the father of Rebekah
(xxii. 22, 23). The reason why Iscah is mentioned is doubtful.
For the rabbinical notion, that Iscah is another name for Sarai,
is irreconcilable with chap. xx. 12, where Abram calls Sarai his
sister, daughter of his father, though not of his mother ; on the
180 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
other hand, the circumstance that Sarai is introduced in ver 31
merely as the daughter-in-law of Terah, may be explained on the
ground that she left Ur, not as his daughter, but as the wife of
his son Abram. A better hypothesis is that of Eicald, that
Iscah is mentioned because she was the wife of Lot ; but this is
pure conjecture. According to ver. 31, Terah already prepared
to leave Ur of the Chaldees with Abram and Lot, and to remove
to Canaan. In the phrase " they went forth with them," the
subject cannot be the unmentioned members of the family, such
as Nahor and his children ; though Nahor must also have gone
to Haran, since it is called in chap. xxiv. 10 the city of Nahor.
For if he accompanied them at this time, there is no perceptible
reason why he should not have been mentioned along with the
rest. The nominative to the verb must be Lot and Sarai, who
went with Terah and Abram ; so that although Terah is placed
at the head, Abram must have taken an active part in the re-
moval, or the resolution to remove. This does not, however,
necessitate the conclusion, that he had already been called by
God in Ur. Nor does chap. xv. 7 require any such assumption.
For it is not stated there that God called Abram in Ur, but only
that He brought him out. But the simple fact of removing from
Ur might also be called a leading out, as a work of divine super-
intendence and guidance, without a special call from God. It
was in Haran that Abram first received the divine call to go to
Canaan (xii. 1-4), when he left not only his country and kindred,
but also his father's house. Terah did not carry out his inten-
tion to proceed to Canaan, but remained in Haran, in his native
country Mesopotamia, probably because he found there what he
was going to look for in the land of Canaan. Haran, more pro-
perly Charan, pR, is a place in north-western Mesopotamia, the
ruins of which may still be seen, a full day's journey to the south
of Edessa (Gr. Kdppai, Lat. Carrw), where Crassus fell when
defeated by the Parthians. It was a leading settlement of the
Ssabians, who had a temple there dedicated to the moon, which
they traced back to Abraham. There Terah died at the age of
205, or sixty years after the departure of Abram for Canaan ; for,
according to ver. 26, Terah was seventy years old when Abram
was born, and Abram was seventy-five years old when he ar-
rived in Canaan. When Stephen, therefore, placed the removal
of Abram from Haran to Canaan after the death of his father,
CHAP. XL 27- XXV. 11. 181
ne merely inferred this from the fact, that the call of Abram
(chap, xii.) was not mentioned till after the death of Terah had
been noticed, taking the order of the narrative as the order of
events ; whereas, according to the plan of Genesis, the death of
Terah is introduced here, because Abram never met with his
father again after leaving Haran, and there was consequently
nothing more to be related concerning him.
CHARACTER OF THE PATRIARCHAL HISTORY.
The dispersion of the descendants of the sons of Noah, who
had now grown into numerous families, was necessarily followed
on the one hand by the rise of a variety of nations, differing in
language, manners, and customs, and more and more estranged
from one another; and on the other by the expansion of the germs
of idolatry, contained in the different attitudes of these nations to-
wards God, into the polytheistic religions of heathenism, in which
the glory of the immortal God was changed into an image made
like to mortal man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and
creeping things (Rom. i. 23 cf. Wisdom xiii.-xv.). If God
therefore would fulfil His promise, no more to smite the earth
with the curse of the destruction of every living thing because of
the sin of man (chap. viii. 21, 22), and yet would prevent the
moral corruption which worketh death from sweeping all before
it ; it was necessary that by the side of these self-formed nations
He should form a nation for Himself, to be the recipient and pre-
server of His salvation, and that in opposition to the rising king-
doms of the world He should establish a kingdom for the living,
saving fellowship of man with Himself. The foundation for this
was laid by God in the call and separation of Abram from his
people and his country, to make him, by special guidance, the
father of a nation from which the salvation of the world should
come. With the choice of Abram the revelation of God to man
assumed a select character, inasmuch as God manifested Himself
henceforth to Abram and his posterity alone as the author of
salvation and the guide to true life ; whilst other nations were left
to follow their own course according to the powers conferred upon
them, in order that they might learn that in their way, and with-
out fellowship with the living God, it was impossible to find peace
to the soul, and the true blessedness of life (cf. Acts xvii. 27).
182 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
But this exclusiveness contained from the very first the germ of
universalism. Abram was called, that through him all the fami-
lies of the earth might be blessed (chap. xii. 1-3). Hence the
new form which the divine guidance of the human race assumed
in the call of Abram was connected with the general develop-
ment of the world, — on the one hand, by the fact that Abram
belonged to the family of Shem, which Jehovah had blessed, and
on the other, by his not being called alone, but as a married
man with his wife. But whilst, regarded in this light, the con-
tinuity of the divine revelation was guaranteed, as well as the
plan of human development established in the creation itself, the
call of Abram introduced so far the commencement of a new
period, that to carry out the designs of God their very founda-
tions required to be renewed. Although, for example, the know-
ledge and worship of the true God had been preserved in the
families of Shem in a purer form than among the remaining
descendants of Noah, even in the house of Terah the worship of
God was corrupted by idolatry (Josh. xxiv. 2, 3) ; and although
Abram was to become the father of the nation which God was
about to form, yet his wife was barren, and therefore, in the way
of nature, a new family could not be expected to spring from
him.
As a perfectly new beginning, therefore, the patriarchal his-
tory assumed the form of a family history, in which the grace
of God prepared the ground for the coming Israel. For the
nation was to grow out of the family, and in the lives of the
patriarchs its character was to be determined and its develop-
ment foreshadowed. The early history consists of three stages,
which are indicated by the three patriarchs, peculiarly so called,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; and in the sons of Jacob the unity
of the chosen family was expanded into the twelve immediate
fathers of the nation. In the triple number of the patriarchs,
the divine election of the nation on the one hand, and the entire
formation of the character and guidance of the life of Israel on
the other, were to attain to their fullest typical manifestation.
These two were the pivots, upon which all the divine revelations
made to the patriarchs, and all the guidance they received, were
made to turn. The revelations consisted almost exclusively of
promises ; and so far as these promises were fulfilled in the lives
of the patriarchs, the fulfilments themselves were predictions and
CHAP. XI. 27-XXV. 11. 183
pledges of the ultimate and complete fulfilment, reserved for a
distant, or for the most remote futurity. And the guidance
vouchsafed had for its object the calling forth of faith in response
to the promise, which should maintain itself amidst all the changes
of this earthly life. " A faith, which laid hold of the word of
promise, and on the strength of that word gave up the visible
and present for the invisible and future, was the fundamental
characteristic of the patriarchs" (Delitzsch). This faith Abram
manifested and sustained by great sacrifices, by enduring pa-
tience, and by self-denying obedience of such a kind, that he
thereby became the father of believers {irarr]p ttclvtwv twv ttlct-
Tevovrcov, Rom. iv. 11). Isaac also was strong in patience and
hope ; and Jacob wrestled in faith amidst painful circumstances
of various kinds, until he had secured the blessing of the promise.
" Abraham was a man of faith that works ; Isaac, of faith that
endures ; Jacob, of faith that wrestles" (Baumgarten). — Thus,
walking in faith, the patriarchs were types of faith for all the
families that should spring from them, and be blessed through
them, and ancestors of a nation which God had resolved to form
according to the election of His grace. For the election of God
was not restricted to the separation of Abram from the family
of Shem, to be the father of the nation which was destined to be
the vehicle of salvation ; it was also manifest in the exclusion of
Ishmael, whom Abram had begotten by the will of man, through
Hagar the handmaid of his wife, for the purpose of securing
the promised seed, and in the new life imparted to the womb of
the barren Sarai, and her consequent conception and birth of
Isaac, the son of promise. And lastly, it appeared still more mani-
festly in the twin sons born by Rebekah to Isaac, of whom the
first-born, Esau, was rejected, and the younger, Jacob, chosen to
be the heir of the promise; and this choice, which was announced
before their birth, was maintained in spite of Isaac's plans, so
that Jacob, and not Esau, received the blessing of the promise.
— All this occurred as a type for the future, that Israel might
know and lay to heart the fact, that bodily descent from Abra-
ham did not make a man a child of God, but that they alone
were children of God who laid hold of the divine promise in
faith, and walked in the steps of their forefather's faith (cf. Rom.
ix. 6-13).
If we fix our eyes upon the method of the divine revelation,
184 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
we find a new beginning in this respect, that as soon as Abram
is called, we read of the appearing of God. It is true that from
the very beginning God had manifested Himself visibly to men ;
but in the olden time we read nothing of appearances, because
before the flood God had not withdrawn His presence from the
earth. Even to Noah He revealed Himself before the flood as
one who was present on the earth. But when He had established
a covenant with him after the flood, and thereby had assured the
continuance of the earth and of the human race, the direct mani-
festations ceased, for God withdrew His visible presence from the
world ; so that it was from heaven that the judgment fell upon the
tower of Babel, and even the call to Abram in his home in Haran
was issued through His word, that is to say, no doubt, through an
inward monition. But as soon as Abram had gone to Canaan,
in obedience to the call of God, Jehovah appeared to him there
(chap. xii. 7). These appearances, which were constantly repeated
from that time forward, must have taken place from heaven ;
for we read that Jehovah, after speaking with Abram and the
other patriarchs, " went away" (chap, xviii. 33), or " went up"
(chap. xvii. 22, xxxv. 13) ; and the patriarchs saw them, some-
times while in a waking condition, in a form discernible to the
bodily senses, sometimes in visions, in a state of mental ecstasy,
and at other times in the form of a dream (chap, xxviii. 12 sqq.).
On the form in which God appeared, in most instances, nothing
is related. But in chap, xviii. 1 sqq. it is stated that three men
came to Abram, one of whom is introduced as Jehovah, whilst
the other two are called angels (chap. xix. 1). Beside this, we
frequently read of appearances of the " angel of Jehovah"
(xvi. 7, xxii. 11, etc.), or of " Elohim," and the "angel of
Elohim" (chap. xxi. 17, xxxi. 11, etc.), which were repeated
throughout the whole of the Old Testament, and even occurred,
though only in vision, in the case of the prophet Zechariah.
The appearances of the angel of Jehovah (or Elohim) cannot
have been essentially different from those of Jehovah (or Elo-
him) Himself ; for Jacob describes the appearance of Jehovah at
Bethel (chap, xxviii. 13 sqq.) as an appearance of "the angel
of Elohim," and of "the God of Bethel" (chap. xxxi. 11, 13) ;
and in his blessing on the sons of Joseph (chap, xlviii. 15, 1G),
" The God (Elohim) before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac
did walk, the God (Elohim) which fed me all my life long unto
CHAP. XI. 27-XXV. 11. 185
this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the
lads," he places the angel of God on a perfect equality with God;
not only regarding Him as the Being to whom he has been in-
debted for protection all his life long, but entreating from Him
a blessing upon his descendants.
The question arises, therefore, whether the angel of Jehovah,
or of God, was God Himself in one particular phase of His
self-manifestation, or a created angel of whom God made use
as the organ of His self-revelation.1 The former appears to
us to be the only scriptural view. For the essential unity of
the Angel of Jehovah with Jehovah Himself follows indisput-
ably from the following facts. In the first place, the Angel of
God identifies Himself with Jehovah and Elohim, by attributing
to Himself divine attributes and performing divine works : e.g.,
chap. xxii. 12, "Now /know that thou f earest God, seeing thou
hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me " (i.e. hast
been willing to offer him up as a burnt sacrifice to God) ; again
(to Hagar) chap. xvi. 10, "1 will multiply thy seed exceedingly,
that it shall not be numbered for multitude ;" chap, xxi., ' I will
make him a great nation," — the very words used by Elohim in
chap. xvii. 20 with reference to Ishmael, and by Jehovah in
chap. xiii. 16, xv. 4, 5, with regard to Isaac; also Ex. iii. 6
sqq., " I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob : / have surely seen the
affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their
cry, and / am come down to deliver them" (cf. Judg. ii. 1).
In addition to this, He performs miracles, consuming with fire
the offering placed before Him by Gideon, and the sacrifice pre-
pared by Manoah, and ascending to heaven in the flame of the
burnt-offering (Judg. vi. 21, xiii. 19, 20). Secondly, the Angel
of God was recognised as God by those to whom He appeared,
1 In the old Jewish synagogue the Angel of Jehovah was regarded as
the Shechinah, the indwelling of God in the world, i.e. the only Mediator
between God and the world, who bears in the Jewish theology the name
Metatron. The early Church regarded Him as the Logos, the second person
of the Deity ; and only a few of the fathers, such as Augustine and Jerome,
thought of a created angel (rid. Hengstenberg, Christol. vol. 3, app.). This
view was adopted by many Romish theologians, by the Socinians, Arminians,
and others, and has been defended recently by Hofmann, whom Delitzsch,
Kurtz, and others follow. But the opinion of the early Church has been
vindicated most thoroughly by Hengstenberg in his Christology.
PENT. — VOL I. N
18G THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
on the one hand by their addressing Him as Adonai (i.e. the
Lord God; Judg. vi. 15), declaring that they had seen God,
and fearing that they should die (chap. xvi. 13 ; Ex. iii. 6 ;
Judg. vi. 22, 23, xiii. 22), and on the other hand by their paying
Him divine honour, offering sacrifices which He accepted, and
worshipping Him (Judg. vi. 20, xiii. 19, 20, cf. ii. 5). The
force of these facts has been met by the assertion, that the am-
bassador perfectly represents the person of the sender; and
evidence of this is adduced not only from Grecian literature,
but from the Old Testament also, where the addresses of the
prophets often glide imperceptibly into the words of Jehovah,
whose instrument they are. But even if the address in chap,
xxii. 16, where the oath of the Angel of Jehovah is accompanied
by the words, "saith the Lord," and the words and deeds of the
Angel of God in certain other cases, might be explained in this
way, a created angel sent by God could never say, "/ am the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," or by the acceptance of
sacrifices and adoration, encourage the presentation of divine
honours to himself. How utterly irreconcilable this fact is
with the opinion that the Angel of Jehovah was a created angel,
is conclusively proved by Rev, xxii. 9, which is generally re-
garded as perfectly corresponding to the account of the " Angel
of Jehovah" of the Old Testament. The angel of God, who
shows the sacred seer the heavenly Jerusalem, and who is sup-
posed to say, "Behold, I come quickly" (ver. 7), and "I am
Alpha and Omega" (ver. 13), refuses in the most decided way
the worship which John is about to present, and exclaims, " See
I am thy fellow-servant : worship God." Thirdly, the Angel
of Jehovah is also identified with Jehovah by the sacred writers
themselves, who call the Angel Jehovah without the least reserve
(cf. Ex. iii. 2 and 4, Judg. vi. 12 and 14-16, but especially
Ex. xiv. 19, where the Angel of Jehovah goes before the host of
the Israelites, just as Jehovah is said to do in Ex. xiii. 21). —
On the other hand, the objection is raised, that clyyeXo? Kvpiou
in the New Testament, which is confessedly the Greek rendering
of mrv ista, is always a created angel, and for that reason can-
not be the uncreated Logos or Son of God, since the latter could
not possibly have announced His own birth to the shepherds at
Bethlehem. But this important difference has been overlooked,
that according to Greek usage, ayye\os Kvpiov denotes an' (any)
CHAP. XI. 27-XXV. 11. 187
angel of the Lord, whereas according to the rules of the Hebrew-
language njn* Tj«7» means the angel of the Lord ; that in the
New Testament the angel who appears is always described as
ayyeXos icvpiov without the article, and the definite article is
only introduced in the further course of the narrative to denote
the angel whose appearance has been already mentioned, where-
as in the Old Testament it is always " the Angel of Jehovah "
who appears, and whenever the appearance of a created angel is
referred to, he is introduced first of all as " an angel " (yid. 1
Kings xix. 5 and 7).1 At the same time, it does not follow from
this use of the expression Maleach Jehovah, that the (particular)
angel of Jehovah was essentially one with God, or that Maleach
Jehovah always has the same signification ; for in Mai. ii. 7 the
priest is called Maleach Jehovah, i.e. the messenger of the Lord.
Who the messenger or angel of Jehovah was, must be deter-
mined in each particular instance from the connection of the
passage ; and where the context, furnishes no criterion, it must
remain undecided. Consequently such passages as Ps. xxxiv.
7, xxxv. 5, 6, etc., where the angel of Jehovah is not more
particularly described, or Num. xx. 16, where the general term
angel is intentionally employed, or Acts vii. 30, Gal. iii. 19,
and Heb. ii. 2, where the words are general and indefinite,
furnish no evidence that the Angel of Jehovah, who proclaimed
Himself in His appearances as one with God, was not in reality
equal with God, unless we are to adopt as the rule for inter-
preting Scripture the inverted principle, that clear and definite
statements are to be explained by those that are indefinite and
obscure.
In attempting now to determine the connection between the
appearance of the Angel of Jehovah (or Elohim) and the ap-
pearance of Jehovah or Elohim Himself, and to fix the precise
meaning of the expression Maleach Jehovah, we cannot make
1 The force of this difference cannot be set aside by the objection that
the New Testament writers follow the usage of the Septuagint, where Tjata
nii"P is rendered otyytho; xvpiov. For neither in the New Testament nor in
the Alex, version of the Old is u.yyi'Kos x.vp!ov used as a proper name ; it is
a simple appellative, as is apparent from the fact that in every instance, in
which further reference is made to an angel who has appeared, he is called
o ayysAo?, with or without xvpi'ov. All that the Septuagint rendering
proves, is that the translators supposed " the angel of the Lord " to be a
created angel ; but it by no means follows that their supposition is correct.
188 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
use, as recent opponents of the old Church view have done, of
the manifestation of God in Gen. xviii. and xix., and the allusion
to the great prince Michael in Dan. x. 13, 21, xii. 1; just be-
cause neither the appearance of Jehovah in the former instance,
nor that of the archangel Michael in the latter, is represented as
an appearance of the Angel of Jehovah. We must confine our-
selves to the passages in which " the Angel of Jehovah" is actu-
ally referred to. We will examine these, first of all, for the
purpose of obtaining a clear conception of the form in which
the Angel of Jehovah appeared. Gen. xvi., where He is men-
tioned for the first time, contains no distinct statement as to
His shape, but produces on the whole the impression that He
appeared to Hagar in a human form, or one resembling that
of man ; since it was not till after His departure that she drew
the inference from His words, that Jehovah had spoken with
her. He came in the same form to Gideon, and sat under the
terebinth at Ophrah with a staff in His hand (Judg. vi. 11 and
21) ; also to Manoah's wife, for she took Him to be a man of
God, i.e. a prophet, whose appearance was like that of the Angel
of Jehovah (Judg. xiii. 6) ; and lastly, to Manoah himself, who
did not recognise Him at first, but discovered afterwards, from
the miracle which He wrought before his eyes, and from His
miraculous ascent in the flame of the altar, that He was the
Angel of Jehovah (vers. 9-20). In other cases He revealed
Himself merely by calling and speaking from heaven, without
those who heard His voice perceiving any form at all : e.g., to
Hagar, in Gen. xxi. 17 sqq., and to Abraham, chap. xxii. 11
sqq. On the other hand, He appeared to Moses (Ex. iii. 2) in
a flame of fire, speaking to him from the burning bush, and to
the people of Israel in a pillar of cloud and fire (Ex. xiv. 19, cf.
xiii. 21 sq.), without any angelic form being visible in either
i case. Balaam He met in a human or angelic form, with a
I drawn sword in His hand (Num. xxii. 22, 23). David saw Him
by the threshing-floor of Araunah, standing between heaven and
earth, with the sword drawn in His hand and stretched out over
Jerusalem (1 Chron. xxi. 16) ; and He appeared to Zechariah
in a vision as a rider upon a red horse (Zech. i. 9 sqq.). — From
these varying forms of appearance it is evident that the opinion
that the Angel of the Lord was a real angel, a divine mani-
festation, " not in the disguise of angel, but through the actual
CHAP. XI. 27-XXV. 11. 189
appearance of an angel," is not in harmony with all the state-
ments of the Bible. The form of the Angel of Jehovah, which
was discernible by the senses, varied according to the purpose of
the appearance ; and, apart from Gen. xxi. 17 and xxii. 11, we
have a sufficient proof that it was not a real angelic appearance,
or the appearance of a created angel, in the fact that in two
instances it was not really an angel at all, but a flame of fire
and a shining cloud which formed the earthly substratum of the
revelation of God in the Angel of Jehovah (Ex. iii. 2, xiv. 19),
unless indeed we are to regard natural phenomena as angels,
without any scriptural warrant for doing so.1 These earthly
substrata of the manifestation of the " Angel of Jehovah" per-
fectly suffice to establish the conclusion, that the Angel of
Jehovah was only a peculiar form in which Jehovah Himself
appeared, and which differed from the manifestations of God
described as appearances of Jehovah simply in this, that in " the
Angel of Jehovah," God or Jehovah revealed Himself in a mode
which was more easily discernible by human senses, and ex-
hibited in a guise of symbolical significance the design of each
particular manifestation. In the appearances of Jehovah no
reference is made to any form visible to the bodily eye, unless
they were through the medium of a vision or a dream, excepting
in one instance (Gen. xviii.), where Jehovah and two angels
come to Abraham in the form of three men, and are entertained
1 The only passage that could be adduced in support of this, viz. Ps.
civ. 4, does not prove that God makes natural objects, winds and flaming
fire, into forms in which heavenly spirits appear, or that He creates spirits
out of them. Even if we render this passage, with Delitzsch, " making His
messengers of winds, His servants of flaming fire," the allusion, as Delitzsch
himself observes, is not to the creation of angels ; nor can the meaning be,
that God gives wind and fire to His angels as the material of their appear-
ance, and as it were of their self-incorporation. For nb'J/i constructed with
two accusatives, the second of which expresses the materia ex qua, is never
met with in this sense, not even in 2 Chron. iv. 18-22. For the greater
part of the temple furniture summed up in this passage, of which it is stated
that Solomon made them of gold, was composed of pure gold ; and if some
of the things were merely covered with gold, the writer might easily apply
the same expression to this, because he had already given a more minute
account of their construction (e.g. chap. iii. 7). But we neither regard
this rendering of the psalm as in harmony with the context, nor assent to
the assertion that nb'J? with a double accusative, in the sense of making
into anything, is ungrammatical.
190 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
by him, — a form of appearance perfectly resembling the appear-
ances of the Angel of Jehovah, but which is not so described by
the author, because in this case Jehovah does not appear alone,
but in the company of two angels, that "the Angel of Jehovah"
might not be regarded as a created angel.
But although there was no essential difference, but only a
formal one, between the appearing of Jehovah and the appear-
ing of the Angel of Jehovah, the distinction between Jehovah
and the Angel of Jehovah points to a distinction in the divine
nature, to which even the Old Testament contains several obvious
allusions. The very name indicates such a difference. ^JNPQ
ni!T (from "HN7 to work, from which come n^?? tne WOT^j opus,
and ^?*?, lit. he through whom a work is executed, but in ordi-
nary usage restricted to the idea of a messenger) denotes the
person through whom God works and appears. Beside these
passages which represent "the Angel of Jehovah" as one with
Jehovah, there are others in which the Angel distinguishes
Himself from Jehovah ; e.g. when He gives emphasis to the
oath by Himself as an oath by Jehovah, by adding " saith Jeho-
vah" (Gen. xxii. 16); when He greets Gideon with the words,
"Jehovah with thee, thou brave hero" (Judg. vi. 12); when
He says to Manoah, " Though thou constrainedst me, I would
not eat of thy food ; but if thou wilt offer a burnt-offering to
Jehovah, thou mayest offer it" (Judg. xiii. 16) ; or when He
prays, in Zech. i. 12, "Jehovah Sabaoth, how long wilt Thou
not have mercy on Jerusalem?" (Compare also Gen. xix. 24,
where Jehovah is distinguished from Jehovah.) Just as in
these passages the Angel of Jehovah distinguishes Himself per-
sonally from Jehovah, there are others in which a distinction is
drawn between a self-revealing side of the divine nature, visible
to men, and a hidden side, invisible to men, i.e. between the
self-revealing and the hidden God. Thus, for example, not
only does Jehovah say of the Angel, whom He sends before
Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire, "My name is in Him," i.e.
he reveals My nature (Ex. xxiii. 21), but He also calls Him "^s,
" My face" (xxxiii. 14) ; and in reply to Moses' request to see His
glory, He says " Thou canst not see My face, for there shall no
man see Me and live," and then causes His glory to pass by
Moses in such a way that he only sees His back, but not His
face (xxxiii. 18-23). On the strength of these expressions, He
CHAP. XI. 27-XXV. 11. 191
in whom Jehovah manifested Himself to His people as a Saviour
is called in Isa. Ixiii. 9, " the Angel of His face," and all the
guidance and protection of Israel are ascribed to Him. In
accordance with this, Malachi, the last prophet of the Old
Testament, proclaims to the people waiting for the manifesta-
tion of Jehovah, that is to say, for the appearance of the Mes-
siah predicted by former prophets, that the Lord (Jfa**n, i.e. God),
the Angel of the covenant, will come to His temple (iii. 1).
This "Angel of the covenant," or "Angel of the face," has
appeared in Christ. The Angel of Jehovah, therefore, was no
other than the Logos, which not only "was with God," but
"was God," and in Jesus Christ "was made flesh" and "came
unto His own" (John i. 1, 2, 11); the only-begotten Son of
God, who was sent by the Father into the world, who, though
one with the Father, prayed to the Father (John xvii.), and
who is even called "the Apostle," 6 airoaroXo^ in Heb. iii. 1.
From all this it is sufficiently obvious, that neither the title
Angel or Messenger of Jehovah, nor the fact that the Angel of
Jehovah prayed to Jehovah Sabaoth, furnishes any evidence
against His essential unity with Jehovah. That which is un-
folded in perfect clearness in the New Testament through the
incarnation of the Son of God, was still veiled in the Old Tes-
ment according to the wisdom apparent in the divine training.
The difference between Jehovah and the Angel of Jehovah is
generally hidden behind the unity of the two, and for the most
part Jehovah is referred to as He who chose Israel as His nation
and kingdom, and who would reveal Himself at some future
time to His people in all His glory ; so that in the New Testa-
ment nearly all the manifestations of Jehovah under the Old
Covenant are referred to Christ, and regarded as fulfilled
through Him.1
1 This is not a mere accommodation of Scripture, but the correct inter-
pretation of the obscure hints of the Old Testament by the light of the ful-
filment in the New. For not only is the Maleack Jehovah the revealer of
God, but Jehovah Himself is the revealed Cod and Saviour. Just as in the
history of the Old Testament there are not only revelations of the Maleack
Jehovah, but revelations of Jehovah also ; so in the prophecies the announce-
ment of the Messiah, the sprout of David and servant of Jehovah, is inter-
mingled with the announcement of the coming of Jehovah to glorify His
people and perfect His kingdom.
192 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
CALL OF ABRAM. HIS REMOVAL TO CANAAN, AND JOURNEY
INTO EGYPT. — CHAP. XII.
The life of Abraham, from his call to his death, consists of
four stages, the commencement of each of which is marked by a
divine revelation of sufficient importance to constitute a distinct
epoch. The first stage (chap, xii.-xiv.) commences with his call
and removal to Canaan ; the second (chap. xv. xvi.), with the
promise of a lineal heir and the conclusion of a covenant; the
third (chap, xvii.— xxi.), with the establishment of the covenant,
accompanied by a change in his name, and the appointment of
the covenant sign of circumcision ; the fourth (chap, xxii.-xxv.
11), with the temptation of Abraham to attest and perfect his life
of faith. All the revelations made to him proceed from Jehovah ;
and the name Jehovah is employed throughout the whole life of
the father of the faithful, Elohim being used only where Jehovah,
from its meaning, would be either entirely inapplicable, or at any
rate less appropriate.1
Vers. 1-3. The Call. — The word of Jehovah, by which
Abram was called, contained a command and a promise. Abram
was to leave all — his country, his kindred (see chap, xliii. 7), and
his father's house — and to follow the Lord into the land which He
would show him. Thus he was to trust entirely to the guidance
of God, and to follow wherever He might lead him. But as he
went in consequence of this divine summons into the land of
Canaan (ver. 5), we must assume that God gave him at the very
first a distinct intimation, if not of the land itself, at least of the
direction he was to take. That Canaan was to be his destination,
was no doubt made known as a matter of certainty in the revela-
tion which he received after his arrival there (ver. 7). — For thus
renouncing and denying all natural ties, the Lord gave him the
inconceivably great promise, " / will make of thee a great nation ;
a in I I will bless thee, and make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a
blessing." The four members of this promise are not to be divided
1 The hypothesis, that the history is compounded of Jehovistic and Elo-
histic documents, can only be maintained by those who misuuderstand the
distinctive meaning of these two names, and arbitrarily set aside the Jehovah
in chap. xvii. 1, on account of an erroneous determination of the relation in
which *t|gf ^S stands to fflrp.
CHAP. XII. 1-3. 193
into two parallel members, in which case the athnach would
stand in the wrong place ; but are to be regarded as an ascend-
ing climax, expressing four elements of the salvation promised to
Abram, the last of which is still further expanded in ver. 3. By
placing the athnach under 1£K> the fourth member is marked as
a new and independent feature added to the other three. The
four distinct elements are — 1. increase into a numerous people ;
2. a blessing, that is to say, material and spiritual prosperity; 3.
the exaltation of his name, i.e. the elevation of Abram to honour
and glory ; 4. his appointment to be the possessor and dispenser
of the blessing. Abram was not only to receive blessing, but to
be a blessing ; not only to be blessed by God, but to become a
blessing, or the medium of blessing, to others. The blessing, as
the more minute definition of the expression " be a blessing" in
ver. 3 clearly shows, was henceforth to keep pace as it were
with Abram himself, so that (1) the blessing and cursing of men
were to depend entirely upon their attitude towards him, and (2)
all the families of the earth were to be blessed in him. 7?$, lit. to
treat as light or little, to despise, denotes " blasphemous cursing
on the part of a man;" "HK "judicial cursing on the part of
God." It appears significant, however, "that the plural is used
in relation to the blessing, and the singular only in relation to
the cursing ; grace expects that there will be many to bless, and
that only an individual here and there will render not blessing
for blessing, but curse for curse." — In ver. 3 b, Abram, the one,
is made a blessing for all. In the word ^ the primary mean-
ing of 2, in, is not to be given up, though the instrumental sense,
through, is not to be excluded. Abram was not merely to be-
come a mediator, but the source of blessing for all. The expres-
sion " all the families of the grounoV points to the division of
the one family into many (chap. x. 5, 20, 31), and the word
n??*J^ to the curse pronounced upon the ground (chap. iii. 17).
The blessing of Abraham was once more to unite the divided
families, and change the curse, pronounced upon the ground on
account of sin, into a blessing for the whole human race. This
concluding word comprehends all nations and times, and con-
denses, as Baumgarten has said, the whole fulness of the divine
counsel for the salvation of men into the call of Abram. All
further promises, therefore, not only to the patriarchs, but also
to Israel, were merely expansions and closer definitions of the
194 'HIE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
salvation held out to the whole human race in the first promise.
Even the assurance, which Abram received after his entrance
into Canaan (ver. 6), was implicitly contained in this first pro-
mise ; since a great nation could not be conceived of, without a
country of its own. This promise was renewed to Abram on
several occasions: first after his separation from Lot (xiii. 14-16),
on which occasion, however, the " blessing" was not mentioned,
because not required by the connection, and the two elements
only, viz. the numerous increase of his seed, and the possession
of the land of Canaan, were assured to him and to his seed, and
that " for ever ; " secondly, in chap, xviii. 18 somewhat more
casually, as a reason for the confidential manner in which Jehovah
explained to him the secret of His government ; and lastly, at the
two principal turning points of his life, where the whole promise
was confirmed with the greatest solemnity, viz. in chap. xvii. at the
commencement of the establishment of the covenant made with
him, where "I will make of thee a great nation" was heightened
into " I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of
thee," and his being a blessing was more fully defined as the estab-
lishment of a covenant, inasmuch as Jehovah would be God to
him and to his posterity (vers. 3 sqq.), and in chap. xxii. after
the attestation of his faith and obedience, even to the sacrifice of
his only son, where the innumerable increase of his seed and the
blessing to pass from him to all nations were guaranteed by an
oath. The same promise was afterwards renewed to Isaac, with a
distinct allusion to the oath (chap. xxvi. 3, 4), and again to Jacob,
both on his flight from Canaan for fear of Esau (chap, xxviii.
13, 14), and on his return thither (chap. xxxv. 11, 12). In the
case of these renewals, it is only in chap, xxviii. 14 that the last
expression, "all the families of theAdamah," is repeated verbatim,
though with the additional clause "and in thy seed;" in the
other passages "all the nations of the earth" are mentioned,
the family connection being left out of sight, and the national
character of the blessing being brought into especial prominence.
In two instances also, instead of the Niphal U"]33 we find the
Ilithpael ^jarin. This change of conjugation by no means proves
that the Niphal is to be taken in its original reflective sense. The
Jfithpael has no doubt the meaning " to wish one's self blessed"
(Deut. xxix. 19), with n of the person from whom the blessing
is sought (Isa. lxv. 16 ; Jer. iv. 2), or whose blessing is desired
CHAP. XII 4-9. 195
(Gen. xlviii. 20). But the Niphal T^? has only the passive sig-
nification " to be blessed." And the promise not only meant that
all families of the earth would wish for the blessing which Abram
possessed, but that they would really receive this blessing in
Abram and his seed. By the explanation " wish themselves
blessed" the point of the promise is broken off ; and not only is
its connection with the prophecy of Noah respecting Japhet's
dwelling in the tents of Shem overlooked, and the parallel between
the blessing on all the families of the earth, and the curse pro-
nounced upon the earth after the flood, destroyed, but the actual
participation of all the nations of the earth in this blessing is
rendered doubtful, and the application of this promise by Peter
(Acts hi. 25) and Paul (Gal. iii. 8) to all nations, is left without
any firm scriptural basis. At the same time, we must not attri-
bute a passive signification on that account to the Hithpael in
chap. xxii. 18 and xxvi. 4. In these passages prominence is
given to the subjective attitude of the nations towards the bless-
ing of Abraham, — in other words, to the fact that the nations
would desire the blessing promised to them in Abraham and his
seed.
Vers. 4-9. Eemoval to Canaan. — Abram cheerfully
followed the call of the Lord, and " departed as the Lord had
spoken to him." Pie was then 75 years old. His age is given,
because a new period in the history of mankind commenced with
his exodus. After this brief notice there follows a more circum-
stantial account, in ver. 5, of the fact that he left Haran with
his wife, with Lot, and with all that they possessed of servants
and cattle, whereas Terah remained in Haran (cf. chap. xi. 31).
V&V lEW EJffijn are not the souls which they had begotten, but the
male and female slaves that Abram and Lot had acquired. —
Ver. 6. On his arival in Canaan, " Abram passed through the
land to the place of Sichem : " i.e. the place where Sichem, the
present Nablus, afterwards stood, between Ebal and Gerizim,
in the heart of the land. " To the terebinth (or, according to
Deut. xi. 30, the terebinths) of Moreh : " fhx, Sj (chap. xiv. 6)
and •"IT'S are the terebinth, Ji?K and npN the oak; though in many
MSS. and editions tf?N and |vK are interchanged in Josh. xix. 33
and Judg. iv. 11, either because the pointing in one of these
passages is inaccurate, or because the word itself was uncertain,
196 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
as the ever-green oaks and terebinths resemble one another in
the colour of their foliage and their fissured bark of sombre
grey. — The notice that " the Canaanites were then in the land "
does not point to a post-Mosaic date, when the Canaanites were
extinct. For it does not mean that the Canaanites were then
still in the land, but refers to the promise which follows, that
God would give this land to the seed of Abram (ver. 7), and
merely states that the land into which Abram had come was
not uninhabited and without a possessor ; so that Abram could
not regard it at once as his own and proceed to take possession
of it, but could only wander in it in faith as in a foreign land
(Heb. xi. 9). — Ver. 7. Here in Sichem Jehovah appeared to
him, and assured him of the possession of the land of Canaan
for his descendants. The assurance was made by means of an
appearance of Jehovah, as a sign that this land was henceforth
to be the scene of the manifestation of Jehovah. Abram
understood this, " and there builded he an altar to Jehovah, who
appeared to him" to make the soil which was hallowed by the
appearance of God a place for the worship of the God who
appeared to him. — Ver. 8. He did this also in the mountains,
to which he probably removed to secure the necessary pasture
for his flocks, after he had pitched his tent there. " Bethel west-
wards and Ai eastwards" i.e. in a spot with Ai to the east and
Bethel to the west. The name Bethel occurs here proleptically :
at the time referred to, it was still called Luz (chap, xxviii. 19);
its present name is Beitin (Robinson's Palestine). At a dis-
tance of about five miles to the east was Ai, ruins of which are
still to be seen, bearing the name of Medinet Gai (Ritters
Erdkunde). On the words " called upon the name of the Lord"
see chap. iv. 26. From this point Abram proceeded slowly to
the Negeb, i.e. to the southern district of Canaan towards the
Arabian desert (vid. chap. xx. 1).
Vers. 10-20. Abram in Egypt. — Abram had scarcely
passed through the land promised to his seed, when a famine
compelled him to leave it, and take refuge in Egypt, which
abounded in corn ; just as the Bedouins in the neighbourhood
are accustomed to do now. Whilst the famine in Canaan was
to teach Abram, that even in the promised land food and cloth-
ing come from the Lord and His blessing, he was to discover in
CHAP. XII. 10-20. 197
Egypt that earthly craft is soon put to shame when dealing with
the possessor of the power of this world, and that help and
deliverance are to be found with the Lord alone, who can so
smite the mightiest kings, that they cannot touch His chosen or
do them harm (Ps. cv. 14, 15). — When trembling for his life in
Egypt on account of the beauty of Sarai his wife, he arranged
with her, as he approached that land, that she should give her-
self out as his sister, since she really was his half-sister (chap,
xi. 29). He had already made an arrangement with her, that
she should do this in certain possible contingencies, when they
first removed to Canaan (chap. xx. 13). The conduct of the
Sodomites (chap, xix.) was a proof that he had reason for his
anxiety ; and it was not without cause even so far as Egypt was
concerned. But his precaution did not spring from faith.
He might possibly hope, that by means of the plan concerted,
he should escape the danger of being put to death on account of
his wife, if any one should wish to take her ; but how he ex-
pected to save the honour and retain possession of his wife, we
cannot understand, though we must assume, that he thought he
should be able to protect and keep her as his sister more easily,
than if he acknowledged her as his wife. But the very thing
he feared and hoped to avoid actually occurred. — Vers. 15 sqq.
The princes of Pharaoh finding her very beautiful, extolled her
beauty to the king, and she was taken to Pharaoh's house. As
Sarah was then 65 years old (cf. chap. xvii. 17 and xii. 4), her
beauty at such an age has been made a difficulty by some. But
as she lived to the age of 127 (chap, xxiii. 1), she was then
middle-aged ; and as her vigour and bloom had not been tried
by bearing children, she might easily appear very beautiful in
the eyes of the Egyptians, whose wives, according to both
ancient and modern testimony, were generally ugly, and faded
early. Pharaoh (the Egyptian ouro, king, with the article Pi)
is the Hebrew name for all the Egyptian kings in the Old
Testament ; their proper names being only occasionally men-
tioned, as, for example, Necho in 2 Kings xxiii. 29, or Hophra
in Jer. xliv. 30. For Sarai's sake Pharaoh treated Abram well,
presenting him with cattle and slaves, possessions which con-
stitute the wealth of nomads. These presents Abram could
not refuse, though by accepting them he increased his sin. God
then interfered (ver. 17), and smote Pharaoh and his house
198 THE FIRST BOOK OF HOSES.
with great plagues. What the nature of these plagues was,
cannot be determined ; they were certainly of such a kind,
however, that whilst Sarah was preserved by them from dis-
honour, Pharaoh saw at once that they were sent as punishment
by the Deity on account of his relation to Sarai ; he may also
have learned, on inquiry from Sarai herself, that she was
Abram's wife. He gave her back to him, therefore, with a
reproof for his untruthfulness, and told him to depart, appoint-
ing men to conduct him out of the land together with his wife
and all his possessions, rw, to dismiss, to give an escort (xviii.
1(5, xxxi. 27), does not necessarily denote an involuntary dis-
missal here. For as Pharaoh had discovered in the plague the
wrath of the God of Abraham, he did not venture to treat him
harshly, but rather sought to mitigate the anger of his God, by
the safe-conduct which he granted him on his departure. But
Abram was not justified by this result, as was very apparent
from the fact, that he was mute under Pharaoh's reproofs, and
did not venture to utter a single word in vindication of his con-
duct, as he did in the similar circumstances described in chap,
xx. 11, 12. The saving mercy of God had so humbled him,
that he silently acknowledged his guilt in concealing his relation
to Sarah from the Egyptian king.
ABRAMrS SEPARATION FROM LOT. — CHAP. XIII.
Vers. 1-4. Abram, having returned from Egypt to the south
of Canaan with his wife and property uninjured, through the
gracious protection of God, proceeded with Lot vyDE^ " accord-
ing to his journeys " (lit. with the repeated breaking up of his
camp, required by a nomad life ; on J?DJ to break up a tent, to
remove, see Ex. xii. 37) into the neighbourhood of Bethel and
Ai, where he had previously encamped and built an altar (chap,
xii. 8), that he might there call upon the name of the Lord
again. That *Op>l (ver. 4) is not a continuation of the relative
clause, but a resumption of the main sentence, and therefore
corresponds with T|^1 (ver. 3), " he went . . . and called upon
the name of the Lord there^ has been correctly concluded by
Delitzsch from the repetition of the subject Abram. — Vers. 5-7.
But as Abram was very rich ("13?, lit* weighty) in possessions
(n?.i?Pj cattle and slaves), and Lot also had flocks, and herds, and
CHAP. XIII. 1-4. 199
tents (pfeti* for DvJ]^, Ges. § 93, G, 3) for his men, of whom
there must have been many therefore, the land did not bear them
when dwelling together (K&jj, masculine at the commencement of
the sentence, as is often the case when the verb precedes the
subject, vid. Ges. § 147), i.e. the land did not furnish space
enough for the numerous herd to graze. Consequently disputes
arose between the two parties of herdsmen. The difficulty was
increased by the fact that the Canaanites and Perizzites were
then dwelling in the land, so that the space was very contracted.
The Perizzites, who are mentioned here and in chap, xxxiv. 30,
Judg. i. 4, along with the Canaanites, and who are placed in
the other lists of the inhabitants of Canaan among the different
Canaanitish tribes (chap. xv. 20 ; Ex. iii. 8, 17, etc.), are not
mentioned among the descendants of Canaan (chap. x. 15-17),
and may therefore, like the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,
and Rephaim (xv. 19-21), not have been descendants of Ham at
all. The common explanation of the name Perizzite as equiva-
lent to nina px ntf1 "inhabitant of the level ground" (Ezek.
xxxviii. 11), is at variance not only with the form of the word,
the inhabitant of the level ground being called "'Pan (Deut. iii.
5), but with the fact of their combination sometimes with the
Canaanites, sometimes with the other tribes of Canaan, whose
names were derived from their founders. Moreover, to explain
the term " Canaanite," as denoting " the civilised inhabitants of
towns," or " the trading Phoenicians," is just as arbitrary as if
we were to regard the Kenites, Kenizzites, and the other tribes
mentioned chap. xv. 19 sqq. along with the Canaanites, as all
alike traders or inhabitants of towns. The origin of the name
Perizzite is involved in obscurity, like that of the Kenites and
other tribes settled in Canaan that were not descended from
Ham. But we may infer from the frequency with which they
are mentioned in connection with the Hamitic inhabitants of
Canaan, that they were widely dispersed among the latter. Vid.
chap. xv. 19-21. — Vers. 8, 9. To put an end to the strife be-
tween their herdsmen, Abram proposed to Lot that they should
separate, as strife was unseemly between Q^nx D^CWX, men who
stood in the relation of brethren, and left him to choose his
ground. " If thou to the left, I will turn to the right; and if
thou to the right, I will turn to the left? Although Abram was
the older, and the leader of the company, he was magnanimous
200 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
enough to leave the choice to his nephew, who was the younger,
in the confident assurance that the Lord would so direct the de-
cision, that His promise would be fulfilled. — Vers. 10-13. Lot
chose what was apparently the best portion of the land, the
whole district of the Jordan, or the valley on both sides of the
Jordan from the Lake of Gennesareth to what was then the
vale of Siddim. For previous to the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah, this whole country was well watered, " as the garden
of Jehovah" the garden planted by Jehovah in paradise, and
"as Egypt" the land rendered so fertile by the overflowing of
the Nile, "in the direction of Zoar." Abram therefore re-
mained in the land of Canaan, whilst Lot settled in the cities of
the plain of the Jordan, and tented (pitched his tents) as far as
Sodom. In anticipation of the succeeding history (chap, xix.), it
is mentioned here (ver. 13), that the inhabitants of Sodom were
very wicked, and sinful before Jehovah. — Vers. 14-18. After
Lot's departure, Jehovah repeated to Abram (by a mental, inward
assurance, as we may infer from the fact that 1CN " said " is not
accompanied byS^I "he appeared") His promise that He would
give the land to him and to his seed in its whole extent, north-
ward, and southward, and eastward, and westward, and would
make his seed innumerable like the dust of the earth. From
this we may see that the separation of Lot was in accordance
with the will of God, as Lot had no share in the promise of
God ; though God afterwards saved him from destruction for
Abram's sake. The possession of the land is promised d?)V "iy
"for ever." The promise of God is unchangeable. As the seed
of Abraham was to exist before God for ever, so Canaan was to
be its everlasting possession. But this applied not to the lineal
posterity of Abram, to his seed according to the flesh, but to the
true spiritual seed, which embraced the promise in faith, and
held it in a pure believing heart. The promise, therefore,
neither precluded the expulsion of the unbelieving seed from the
land of Canaan, nor guarantees to existing Jews a return to the
earthly Palestine after their conversion to Christ. For as Calvin
justly says, " qunm terra in so?culu?n promittitur, non simpliciter
notatur perpetuitas ; sed qua? finem accepit in Christo" Through
Christ the promise has been exalted from its temporal form to
its true essence ; through Him the whole earth becomes Canaan
(yid, chap. xvii. 8). That Abram might appropriate this renewed
CHAP. XIV. 1-12. 201
and now more fully expanded promise, Jehovah directed him to
walk through the land in the length of it and the breadth of it.
In doing this he came in his "tenting," i.e. his wandering
through the land, to Hebron, where he settled by the terebinth
of the Amorite Mamre (chap. xiv. 13), and built an altar to
Jehovah. The term 3K>'1 (set himself, settled down, sat, dwelt)
denotes that Abram made this place the central point of his sub-
sequent stay in Canaan (cf. chap. xiv. 13, xviii. 1, and chap,
xxiii.). On Hebron, see chap, xxiii. 2.
ABRAM'S MILITARY EXPEDITION ; AND HIS SUBSEQUENT
MEETING WITH MELCHIZEDEK. — CHAP. XIV.
Vers. 1-12. The war, which furnished Abram with an op-
portunity, while in the promised land of which as yet he could
not really call a single rood his own, to prove himself a valiant
warrior, and not only to smite the existing chiefs of the imperial
power of Asia, but to bring back to the kings of Canaan the
booty that had been carried off, is circumstantially described, not
so much in the interests of secular history as on account of its
significance in relation to the kingdom of God. It is of impor-
tance, however, as a simple historical fact, to see that in the state-
ment in ver. 1, the king of Shinar occupies the first place,
although the king of Edom, Chedorlaomer, not only took the
lead in the expedition, and had allied himself for that purpose
with the other kings, but had previously subjugated the cities of
the valley of Siddim, and therefore had extended his dominion
very widely over hither Asia. If, notwithstanding this, the time
of the war related here is connected with "the days of Amraphel,
king of Shinar" this is done, no doubt, with reference to the fact
that the first worldly kingdom was founded in Shinar by Nim-
rod (chap. x. 10), a kingdom which still existed under Amraphel,
though it was now confined to Shinar itself, whilst Elam pos-
sessed the supremacy in inner Asia. There is no ground what-
ever for regarding the four kings mentioned in ver. 1 as four
Assyrian generals or viceroys, as Josephus has done in direct
contradiction to the biblical text; for, according to the more
careful historical researches, the commencement of the Assyrian
kingdom belongs to a later period ; and Berosus speaks of an
earlier Median rule in Babylon, which reaches as far back as the
PENT. — VOL. I. O
202 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
age of the patriarchs (cf. M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs, p. 271).
It appears significant also, that the imperial power of Asia had
already extended as far as Canaan, and had subdued the valley of
the Jordan, no doubt with the intention of holding the Jordan
valley as the high-road to Egypt. "We have here a prelude of
the future assault of the worldly power upon the kingdom of
God established in Canaan ; and the importance of this event to
sacred history consists in the fact, that the kings of the valley of
the Jordan and the surrounding country submitted to the worldly
power, whilst Abram, on the contrary, with his home-born ser-
vants, smote the conquerors and rescued their booty, — a pro-
phetic sign that in the conflict with the power of the world the
seed of Abram would not only not be subdued, but would be
able to rescue from destruction those who appealed to it for aid.
In vers. 1-3 the account is introduced by a list of the parties
engaged in war. The kings named here are not mentioned
again. On Shinar, see chap. x. 10 ; and on Elam, chap. x. 22.
It cannot be determined with certainty where Ellasar was.
Knobel supposes it to be Artemita, which was also called XaXdaap,
in southern Assyria, to the north of Babylon. Goyim is not
used here for nations generally, but is the name of one parti-
cular nation or country. In Delitzsclis opinion it is an older
name for Galilee, though probably with different boundaries (cf.
Josh. xii. 23 ; Judg. iv. 2 ; and Isa. ix. 1).— The verb Vt>V {made),
in ver. 2, is governed by the kings mentioned in ver. 1. To
Bela, whose king is not mentioned by name, the later name Zoar
(vid. xix. 22) is added as being better known. — Ver. 3. "All
these (five kings) allied themselves together, (and came with their
forces) into the vale of Siddim (B'nkTi, prob. fields or plains),
which is the Salt Sea ;" that is to say, which was changed into the
Salt Sea on the destruction of its cities (chap. xix. 24, 25). That
there should be five kings in the five cities (jrevTaTroXis, Wisdom
x. 6) of this valley, was quite in harmony with the condition of
Canaan, where even at a later period every city had its king. —
Vers. 4 sqq. The occasion of the war was the revolt of the kings
of the vale of Siddim from Chedorlaomer. They had been
subject to him for twelve years, "and the thirteenth year they re-
belled" In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer came with his
allies to punish them for their rebellion, and attacked on his way
several other cities to the east of the Arabah, as far as the
CHAP. XIV. 1-12. 203
Elanitic Gulf, no doubt because they also had withdrawn from
his dominion. The army moved along the great military road
from inner Asia, past Damascus, through Persea, where they
smote the Rephaims, Zuzims, Emims, and Horites. " The
Repliaim in Ashteroth Karnaim:" all that is known with cer-
tainty of the Rephaim is, that they were a tribe of gigantic
stature, and in the time of Abram had spread over the whole of
Persea, and held not only Bashan, but the country afterwards
possessed by the Moabites ; from which possessions they were
subsequently expelled by the descendants of Lot and the Amor-
ites, and so nearly exterminated, that Og, king of Bashan, is de-
scribed as the remnant of the Rephaim (Deut. ii. 20, iii. 11, 13 ;
Josh. xii. 4, xiii. 12). Beside this, there were Rephaim on this
side of the Jordan among the Canaanitish tribes (chap. xv. 20),
some to the west of Jerusalem, in the valley which was called
after them the valley of the Rephaim (Josh. xv. 8, xviii. 16;
2 Sam. v. 18, etc.), others on the mountains of Ephraim (Josh,
xvii. 15) ; while the last remains of them were also to be found
among the Philistines (2 Sam. xxi. 16 sqq. ; 1 Chron. xx. 4 sqq.).
The current explanation of the name, viz. " the long-stretched,"
or giants (Ewald), does not prevent our regarding NSH as the per-
sonal name of their forefather, though no intimation is given of
their origin. That they were not Canaanites may be inferred
from the fact, that on the eastern side of the Jordan they were
subjugated and exterminated by the Canaanitish branch of the
Amorites. Notwithstanding this, they may have been descend-
ants of Ham, though the fact that the Canaanites spoke a
Semitic tongue rather favours the conclusion that the oldest
population of Canaan, and therefore the Rephaim, were of
Semitic descent. At any rate, the opinion of J. G. Midler, that
they belonged to the aborigines, who were not related to Shem,
Ham, and Japhet, is perfectly arbitrary. — Ashteroth Karnaim,
or briefly Ashtaroth, the capital afterwards of Og of Bashan, was
situated in Hauran ; and ruins of it are said to be still seen in
Tell Ashtereh, two hours and a half from Nowah, and one and
three-quarters from the ancient Edrei, somewhere between Nowah
and Mezareib (see Hitter, Erdkunde)} — " T/ie Zuzims in Ham"
1 J. G. Wetztein, however, has lately denied the identity of Ashteroth
Karnaim, which he interprets as meaning Ashtaroth near Karnaim, with
Ashtaroth the capital of Og (See Ileiseber. ub. Hauran, etc. 18G0, p. 107).
204 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
were probably the people whom the Ammonites called Zam-
zummim, and who were also reckoned among the Rephaim
(Deut. ii. 20). Ham was possibly the ancient name of JRahba
of the Ammonites (Deut. iii. 11), the remains being still pre-
served in the ruins of Amman. — " The Emim in the plain of
Kiryathaim" the ^^ or D">DK (i.e. fearful, terrible), were the
earlier inhabitants of the country of the Moabites, who gave
them the name ; and, like the Anakim, they were also reckoned
among the Rephaim (Deut. ii. 11). Kiryathaim is certainly
not to be found where Eusebius and Jerome supposed, viz. in
Kapidha, Coraiatha, the modern Koerriath or Kereyat, ten miles
to the west of Medabah ; for this is not situated in the plain, and
corresponds to Kerioth (Jer. xlviii. 24), with which Eusebius
and Jerome have confounded Kiryathaim. It is probably still to
be seen in the ruins of el Teym or et Tueme, about a mile to the
west of Medabah. " Tlie Horites (from ^n, dwellers in caves),
in the mountains of Seir," were the earlier inhabitants of the
land between the Dead Sea and the Elanitic Gulf, who were
conquered and exterminated by the Edomites (xxxvi. 20sqq.). —
" To El-Paran, which is by the xoilderness :" i.e. on the eastern
side of the desert of Paran (see chap. xxi. 21), probably the
same as Elath (Deut. ii. 8) or Eloth (1 Kings ix. 26), the im-
portant harbour of Aila on the northern extremity of the so-
called Elanitic Gulf, near the modern fortress of Akaba, where
extensive heaps of rubbish show the site of the former town,
which received its name El or Elath (terebinth, or rather wood)
probably from the palm-groves in the vicinity. — Ver. 7. From
Aila the conquerors turned round, and marched (not through
the Arabah, but on the desert plateau which they ascended from
But he does so without sufficient reason. He disputes most strongly the fact
that Ashtaroth was situated on the hill Ashtcre, because the Arabs now in
Ilauran assured him, that the ruins of this Tell (or hill) suggested rather a
monastery or watch-tower than a large city, and associates it with the Bostra
of the Greeks and Romans, the modern Bozra, partly on account of the cen-
tral situation of this town, and its consequent importance to Hauran and
Persea generally, and partly also on account of the similarity in the name,
as Bostra is the latinized form of Beeshterah, which we find in Josh. xxi.
27 in the place of the Ashtaroth of 1 Chron. vi. 56 ; and that form is composed
of Beth Ashtaroth, to which there are as many analogies as there are instances
of the omission of Beth before the names of towns, which is a sufficient ex-
planation of Ashtaroth (cf. Ges. thes., p. 175 and 193).
CHAP. XIV. 13-16. 205
Aila) to En-mishpat (ivell of judgment), the older name of
Kadesh, the situation of which, indeed, cannot be proved with
certainty, but which is most probably to be sought for in the
neighbourhood of the spring Ain Kades, discovered by Rowland,
to the south of Bir Seba and Khalasa (Elusa), twelve miles
E.S.E. of Moyle, the halting-place for caravans, near Hagar's
well (xvi. 14), on the heights of Jehel Haled (see Hitter, Erdkuude,
and Num. xiii.). " And they smote all the country of the Ama-
leldtes" i.e. the country afterwards possessed by the Amalekites
(vid. chap, xxxvi. 12),1 to the west of Edomitis on the southern
border of the mountains of Judah (Num. xiii. 29), " and also the
Amorites, who dwelt in Hazazon-Thaniar," i.e. Engedi, on the
western side of the Dead Sea (2 Chron. xx. 2). — Vers. 8 sqq.
After conquering all these tribes to the east and west of the
Arabah, they gave battle to the kings of the Pentapolis in the
vale of Siddim, and put them to flight. The kings of Sodom
and Gomorrah fell there, the valley being full of asphalt-pits,
and the ground therefore unfavourable for flight ; but the others
escaped to the mountains (rnn for n^^), that is, to the Moabitish
highlands with their numerous defiles. The conquerors there-
upon plundered the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and carried
off Lot, who dwelt in Sodom, and all his possessions, along with
the rest of the captives, probably taking the route through the
valley of the Jordan up to Damascus.
Vers. 13-16. A fugitive (lit. the fugitive ; the article denotes
the genus, Ewald, § 277) brought intelligence of this to Abram
the Hebrew Ql^V^, an immigrant from beyond the Euphrates).
Abram is so called in distinction from Mamre and his two
brothers, who were Amorites, and had made a defensive treaty
with him. To rescue Lot, Abram ordered his trained slaves
(Va^n, i.e. practised in arms) born in the house (cf. xvii. 12), 318
men, to turn out (lit. to pour themselves out) ; and with these,
and (as the supplementary remark in ver. 24 shows) with his
allies, he pursued the enemy as far as Dan, where " he divided
1 The circumstance that in the midst of a list of tribes who were defeated,
we find not the tribe but only the fields (mb>) of the Amalekites mentioned,
can only be explained on the supposition that the nation of the Amalekites
was not then in existence, and the country was designated proleptically by
the name of its future and well-known inhabitants (Hengstenberg, Diss. ii.
p. 249, translation).
20G THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
himself against them, he and his servants, by night" — i.e. he divided
his men into companies, who fell upon the enemy by night from
different sides, — " smote them, and pursued them to ITobah, to the
left (or north) of Damascus." Hobah has probably been pre-
served in the village of Hoba, mentioned by Troilo, a quarter of a
mile to the north of Damascus. So far as the situation of Dan
is concerned, this passage proves that it cannot have been iden-
tical with Leshem or Laish in the valley of Beth Rehob, which
the Danites conquered and named Dan (Judg. xviii. 28, 29 ;
Josh. xix. 47) ; for this Laish-Dan was on the central source of
the Jordan, el Leddan in Tell el Kadi/, which does not lie in
either of the two roads, leading from the vale of Siddim or of
the Jordan to Damascus.1 This Dan belonged to Gilead (Deut.
xxxiv. 1), and is no doubt the same as the Dan- Joan mentioned
in 2 Sam. xxiv. 6 in connection with Gilead, and to be sought
for in northern Persea to the south-west of Damascus.
Vers. 17-24. — As Abram returned with the booty which he
had taken from the enemy, the king of Sodom (of course, the
successor to the one who fell in the battle) and Melchizedek,
king of Salem, came to meet him to congratulate him on his
victory ; the former probably also with the intention of asking
for the prisoners who had been rescued. They met him in " the
valley of Shaveh, which is (what was afterwards called) the King's
dale." This valley, in which Absalom erected a monument for
himself (2 Sam. xviii. 18), was, according to Josephus, two
stadia from Jerusalem, probably by the brook Kidron there-
fore, although Absalom's pillar, which tradition places there, was
of the Grecian style rather than the early Hebrew. The name
King's dale was given to it undoubtedly with reference to the
event referred to here, which points to the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem. For the Salem of Melchizedek cannot have been
the Salem near to which John baptized (John iii, 23), or JEnon,
which was eight Roman miles south of Scythopolis, as a march
1 One runs below the Sea of Galilee past Fik and Nowa, almost in a
straight line to Damascus ; the other from Jacob's Bridge, below Lake
Merom. But if the enemy, instead of returning with their booty to Thap-
sacus, on the Euphrates, by one of the direct roads leading from the Jordan
past Damascus and Palmyra, had gone through the land of Canaan to the
sources of the Jordan, they would undoubtedly, when defeated at Laish-Dan,
have fled through the Wady ct Tcim and the Bekaa to Hamath, and not by
Damascus at all (vid. Robinson, Bibl. Researches.
CHAP. XIV. 17-24. 207
of about forty hours for the purpose of meeting Abraham, if
not romantic, would at least be at variance with the text of
Scripture, where the kings are said to have gone out to Abram
after his return. It must be Jerusalem, therefore, which is
called by the old name Salem in Ps. Ixxvi. 2, out of which the
name Jerusalem (founding of peace, or possession of peace) was
formed by the addition of the prefix VV = TP " founding," or
BTI* " possession." Melchizedek brings bread and wine from
Salem " to supply the exhausted warriors with food and drink,
but more especially as a mark of gratitude to Abram, who had
conquered for them peace, freedom, and prosperity" (Delitzscli).
This gratitude he expresses, as a priest of the supreme God, in
the words, " Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, the founder
of heaven and earth ; and blessed be God, the Most High, who
hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand? The form of the
blessing is poetical, two parallel members with words peculiar to
poetry, Tl* for T£K, and faD. — f\ty ^ without the article is a
proper name for the supreme God, the God over all (cf. Ex.
xviii. 11), who is pointed out as the only true God by the addi-
tional clause, " founder of the heaven and the earth." On the
construction of sp">3 with ?, vid. chap. xxxi. 15, Ex. xii. 16, and
Ges. § 143, 2. rnp? founder and possessor : H3^ combines the
meanings of ktiQuv and fcraaOcu. This priestly reception Abram
reciprocated by giving him the tenth of all, i.e. of the whole of
the booty taken from the enemy. Giving the tenth was a prac-
tical acknowledgment of the divine priesthood of Melchizedek ;
for the tenth was, according to the general custom, the offering
presented to the Deity. Abram also acknowledged the God of
Melchizedek as the true God ; for when the king of Sodom
asked for his people only, and would have left the rest of the
booty to Abram, he lifted up his hand as a solemn oath " to
Jehovah, the Most High God, the founder of heaven and earthy —
acknowledging himself as the servant of this God by calling
Him by the name Jehovah, — and swore that he would not take
" from a thread to a shoe-string," i.e. the smallest or most worth-
less thing belonging to the king of Sodom, that he might not
be able to say, he had made Abram rich. DS, as the sign of an
oath, is negative, and in an earnest address is repeated before
the verb. " Except Oil??, lit. not to me, nothing for me) only
what the young men (Abram's men) have eaten, and the portion
208 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
of my allien . ... let them take their portion:" i.e. his followers
should receive what had been consumed as their share, and the
allies should have the remainder of the booty.
Of the property belonging to the king of Sodom, which he
had taken from the enemy, Abram would not keep the smallest
part, because he would not have anything in common with
Sodom. On the other hand, he accepted from Salem's priest
and king, Melchizedek, not only bread and wine for the invigo-
ration of the exhausted warriors, but a priestly blessing also,
and gave him in return the tenth of all his booty, as a sign that
he acknowledged this king as a priest of the living God, and
submitted to his royal priesthood. In this self-subordination of
Abram to Melchizedek there was the practical prediction of a
royal priesthood which is higher than the priesthood entrusted to
Abram's descendants, the sons of Levi, and foreshadowed in the
noble form of Melchizedek, who blessed as king and priest the
patriarch whom God had called to be a blessing to all the fami-
lies of the earth. The name of this royal priest is full of mean-
ing : Melchizedek, i.e. King of Righteousness. Even though,
judging from Josh. x. 1, 3, where a much later king is called
Adonizedek, i.e. Lord of Righteousness, this name may have
been a standing title of the ancient kings of Salem, it no doubt
originated with a king who ruled his people in righteousness,
and was perfectly appropriate in the case of the Melchizedek
mentioned here. There is no less significance in the name of
the seat of his government, Salem, the peaceful or peace, since
it shows that the capital of its kings was a citadel of peace, not
only as a natural stronghold, but through the righteousness of
its sovereign ; for which reason David chose it as the seat of
royalty in Israel ; and Moriah, which formed part of it, was
pointed out to Abraham by Jehovah as the place of sacrifice for
the kingdom of God which was afterwards to be established.
And, lastly, there was something very significant in the appear-
ance in the midst of the degenerate tribes of Canaan of this
king of righteousness, and priest of the true God of heaven and
earth, without any account of his descent, or of the beginning
and end of his life ; so that he stands forth in the Scriptures,
" without father, without mother, without descent, having neither
beginning of days nor end of life." Although it by no means
follows from this, however, that Melchizedek was a celestial
CHAP. XV. 209
being (the Logos, or an angel), or one of the primeval patriarchs
(Enoch or Shem), as Church fathers, Rabbins, and others have
conjectured, and we can see in him nothing more than one, per-
haps the last, of the witnesses and confessors of the early reve-
lation of God, coming out into the light of history from the dark
night of heathenism ; yet this appearance does point to a priest-
hood of universal significance, and to a higher order of things,
which existed at the commencement of the world, and is one day
to be restored again. In all these respects, the noble form of
this king of Salem and priest of the Most High God was a
type of the God-King and eternal High Priest. Jesus Christ ;
a thought which is expanded in Heb. vii. on the basis of this
account, and of the divine utterance revealed to David in the
Spirit, that the King of Zion sitting at the right hand of Jeho-
vah should be a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek
(Ps. ex. 4).
THE COVENANT. — CHAP. XV.
With the formula " after these things" there is introduced a
new revelation of the Lord to Abram, which differs from the
previous ones in form and substance, and constitutes a new
turning point in his life. The " word of Jehovah " came to him
" in a vision" i.e. neither by a direct internal address, nor by such
a manifestation of Himself as fell upon the outward senses, nor
in a dream of the night, but in a state of ecstasy by an inward
spiritual intuition, and that not in a nocturnal vision, as in chap,
xlvi. 2, but in the day-time. The expression " in a vision " ap-
plies to the whole chapter. There is no pause anywhere, nor
any sign that the vision ceased, or that the action was trans-
ferred to the sphere of the senses and of external reality. Con-
sequently the whole process is to be regarded as an internal
one. The vision embraces not only vers. 1-4 or 8, but the
entire chapter, with this difference merely, that from ver. 12
onwards the ecstasy assumed the form of a prophetic sleep pro-
duced by God. It is true that the bringing Abram out, his
seeing the stars (ver. 5), and still more especially his taking the
sacrificial animals and dividing them (vers. 9, 10), have been
supposed by some to belong to the sphere of external reality,
on the ground that these purely external acts would not neces-
210 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
sarlly presuppose a cessation of the ecstasy, since the vision was
no catalepsy, and did not preclude the full (?) use of tho out-
ward senses. But however true this may be, not only is every
mark wanting, which would warrant us in assuming a transition
from the purely inward and spiritual sphere, to the outward
sphere of the senses, but the entire revelation culminates in a
prophetic sleep, which also bears the character of a vision. As
it was in a deep sleep that Abram saw the passing of the divine
appearance through the carefully arranged portions of the sacri-
fice, and no reference is made either to the burning of them,
as in Judg. vi. 21, or to any other removal, the arrangement of
the sacrificial animals must also have been a purely internal
process. To regard this as an outward act, we must break up the
continuity of the narrative in a most arbitrary way, and not only
transfer the commencement of the vision into the night, and
suppose it to have lasted from twelve to eighteen hours, but
we must interpolate the burning of the sacrifices, etc., in a still
more arbitrary manner, merely for the sake of supporting the
erroneous assumption, that visionary procedures had no objec-
tive reality, or, at all events, less evidence of reality than out-
ward acts, and things perceived by the senses. A vision wrought
by God was not a mere fancy, or a subjective play of the
thoughts, but a spiritual fact, which was not only in all respects
as real as things discernible by the senses, but which surpassed
in its lasting significance the acts and events that strike the eye.
The covenant which Jehovah made with Abram was not in-
tended to give force to a mere agreement respecting mutual
rights and obligations, — a thing which could have been accom-
plished by an external sacrificial transaction, and by God pass-
ing through the divided animals in an assumed human form, —
but it was designed to establish the purely spiritual relation of
a living fellowship between God and Abram, of the deep in-
ward meaning of which, nothing but a spiritual intuition and
experience could give to Abram an effective and permanent hold.
Vers. 1-6. The words of Jehovah run thus : " Fear not,
Abram : I am a shield to thee, thy reward very much? H2nn an
inf. absol., generally used adverbially, but here as an adjective,
equivalent to " thy very great reward." The divine promise to
be a shield to him, that is to say, a protection against all ene-
mies, and a reward, i.e. richly to reward his confidence, his
CHAP. XV. 1-6. 211
ready obedience, stands here, as the opening words " after these
tilings" indicate, in close connection with the previous guidance
of Abram. Whilst the protection of his wife in Egypt was a
practical pledge of the possibility of his having a posterity, and
the separation of Lot, followed by the conquest of the kings of
the East, was also a pledge of the possibility of his one day pos-
sessing the promised land, there was as yet no prospect what-
ever of the promise being realized, that he should become a
great nation, and possess an innumerable posterity. In these
circumstances, anxiety about the future might naturally arise in
his mind. To meet this, the word of the Lord came to him
with the comforting assurance, "Fear not, I am thy shield."
But when the Lord added, " and thy very great reward," Abram
could, only reply, as he thought of his childless condition :
" Lord Jehovah, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless V
Of what avail are all my possessions, wealth, and power, since
I have no child, and the heir of my house is Eliezer the Dama-
scene? pBfo, synonymous with p&ftft (Zeph. ii. 9), possession, or
the seizure of possession, is chosen on account of its assonance
with pv®\ pt^?"lr?j son of the seizing of possession — seizer of
possession, or heir. Eliezer of Damascus (lit. Damascus viz.
Eliezer) : Eliezer is an explanatory apposition to Damascus, in
the sense of the Damascene Eliezer ; though pB>S% on account
of its position before itj^Nj cannot be taken grammatically as
equivalent to ''pb'OT.1 — To give still more distinct utterance to
his grief, Abram adds (ver. 3) : " Behold, to me Thou hast given
no seed ; and lo, an inmate of my house (W2TJ3 in distinction
from n?3"T?*, home-born, chap. xiv. 14) will he my heir." The
word of the Lord then came to him : " Not he, but one who shall
come forth from thy body, he ivill he thine heir.'" God then took
him into the open air, told him to look up to heaven, and pro-
mised him a posterity as numerous as the innumerable host of
stars (cf. chap. xxii. 17, xxvi. 4 ; Ex. xxxii. 13, etc). Whether
Abram at this time was " in the body or out of the body," is a
matter of no moment. The reality of the occurrence is the
same in either case. This is evident from the remark made by
Moses (the historian) as to the conduct of Abram in relation to
1 The legend of Abram having been king in Damascus appears to have
originated in this, though the passage before us does not so much as show
that Abram obtained possession of Eliezer on his way through Damascus.
212 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
the promise of God: " And he believed in Jehovah, and He
counted it to him for righteoxisness." In the strictly objective
character of the account in Genesis, in accordance with which
the simple, facts are related throughout without auy introduc-
tion of subjective opinions, this remark appears so striking, that
the question naturally arises, What led Moses to introduce it ?
In what way did Abram make known his faith in Jehovah ?
And in what way did Jehovah count it to him as righteousness %
The reply to both questions must not be sought in the New
Testament, but must be given or indicated in the context.
What reply did Abram make on receiving the promise, or
what did he do in consequence % When God, to confirm the
promise, declared Himself to be Jehovah, who brought him out
of Ur of the Chaldees to give him that land as a possession,
Abram replied, "Lord, whereby shall I know that I shall pos-
sess it?" God then directed him to " fetch a heifer of three
years old," etc. ; and Abram fetched the animals required, and
arranged them (as we may certainly suppose, though it is not
expressly stated) as God had commanded him. By this readi-
ness to perform what God commanded him, Abram gave a
practical proof that he believed Jehovah ; and what God did
with the animals so arranged was a practical declaration on the
part of Jehovah, that He reckoned this faith to Abram as
righteousness. The significance of the divine act is, finally,
summed up in ver. 18, in the words, " On that day Jehovah
made a covenant with Abram." Consequently Jehovah reckoned
Abram's faith to him as righteousness, by making a covenant
with him, by taking Abram into covenant fellowship with Him-
self. PP^n, from JON to continue and to preserve, to be firm
and to confirm, in Hiphil to trust, believe (jnareveiv), expresses
" that state of mind which is sure of its object, and relies
firmly upon it ;" and as denoting conduct towards God, as " a
firm, inward, personal, self-surrendering reliance upon a per-
sonal being, especially upon the source of all being," it is con-
strued sometimes with ? {e.g. Deut. ix. 23), but more frequently
with 2 (Num. xiv. 11, xx. 12; Deut. i. 32), "to believe the
Lord," and "to believe on the Lord," to trust in Him, — iricr-
reveiv eirl rbv Qeov, as the apostle has more correctly rendered
the eiriarevaev — tw Qea> of the LXX. (yid. Rom. iv. 5). Faith
therefore is not merely assensus, but Jiducia also, unconditional
CHAP. XV. 7-11. 213
trust in the Lord and His word, even where the natural course
of events furnishes no ground for hope or expectation. This
faith Abram manifested, as the apostle has shown in Rom. iv. ;
and this faith God reckoned to him as righteousness by the
actual conclusion of a covenant with him. n^TV, righteousness,
as a human characteristic, is correspondence to the will of God
both in character and conduct, or a state answering to the
divine purpose of a man's being. This was the state in which
man was first created in the image of God ; but it was lost by
sin, through which he placed himself in opposition to the will
of God and to his own divinely appointed destiny, and could
only be restored by God. When the human race had univer-
sally corrupted its way, Noah alone was found righteous before
God (vii. 1), because he was blameless and walked with God
(vi. 9). This righteousness Abram acquired through his un-
conditional trust in the Lord, his undoubting faith in His pro-
mise, and his ready obedience to His word. This state of mind,
which is expressed in the words nyTQ poxn, was reckoned to him
as righteousness, so that God treated him as a righteous man,
and formed such a relationship with him, that he was placed in
living fellowship with God. The foundation of this relation-
ship was laid in the manner described in vers. 7—11.
Vers. 7—11. Abram's question, " Whereby shall I know that 1
shall take possession of it (the land)?" was not an expression of
doubt, but of desire for the confirmation or sealing of a promise,
which transcended human thought and conception. To gratify
this desire, God commanded him to make preparation for the
conclusion of a covenant. " Take Me, He said, a heifer of three
years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three
years old, and a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon ;" one of every
species of the animals suitable for sacrifice. Abram took these,
and " divided them in the midst" i.e. in half, " and placed one
half of each opposite to the other (i~in2. ti^tf, every one its half, cf .
xlii. 25 ; Num. xvii. 17) ; only the birds divided he not" just as
in sacrifice the doves were not divided into pieces, but placed
upon the fire whole (Lev. i. 17). The animals chosen, as well
as the fact that the doves were left whole, corresponded exactly
to the ritual of sacrifice. Yet the transaction itself was not a
real sacrifice, since there was neither sprinkling of blood nor
offering upon an altar (oblatio), and no mention is made of the
214 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
pieces being burned. The proceeding corresponded rather to
the custom, prevalent in many ancient nations, of slaughtering
animals when concluding a covenant, and after dividing them
into pieces, of laying the pieces opposite to one another, that
the persons making the covenant might pass between them.
Thus Ephraem Syrus (1, 1G1) observes, that God condescended
to follow the custom of the Chaldeans, that He might in the
most solemn manner confirm Plis oath to Abram the Chaldean.
The wide extension of this custom is evident from the expression
used to denote the conclusion of a covenant, rvnn JT]3 to hew, or
cut a covenant, Aram. D"]p P3, Greek opicia refMveLv, fcedusferire,
i.e. ferienda hostla facere fcedus ; cf. Bochart {Hieroz. 1, 332) ;
whilst it is evident from Jer. xxxiv. 18, that this was still
customary among the Israelites of later times. The choice of
sacrificial animals for a transaction which was not strictly a
sacrifice, was founded upon the symbolical significance of the
sacrificial animals, i.e. upon the fact that they represented and
took the place of those who offered them. In the case before
us, they were meant to typify the promised seed of Abram.
This would not hold good, indeed, if the cutting of the animals
had been merely intended to signify, that any who broke the
covenant would be treated like the animals that were there cut
in pieces. But there is no sure ground in Jer. xxxiv. 18 sqq.
for thus interpreting the ancient custom. The meaning which
the prophet there assigns to the symbolical usage, may be simply
a different application of it, which does not preclude an earlier
and different intention in the symbol. The division of the
animals probably denoted originally the two parties to the
covenant, and the passing of the latter through the pieces laid
opposite to one another, their formation into one • a signification
to which the other might easily have been attached as a further
consequence and explanation. And if in such a case the sacri-
ficial animals represented the parties to the covenant, so also
even in the present instance the sacrificial animals were fitted
for that purpose, since, although originally representing only the
owner or offerer of the sacrifice, by their consecration as sacri-
fices they were also brought into connection with Jehovah. But
in the case before us the animals represented Abram and his
seed, not in the fact of their being slaughtered, as significant of
the slaying of that seed, but only in what happened to and in
CHAP. XV. 12-17. 215
connection with the slaughtered animals : birds of prey attempted
to eat them, and when extreme darkness came on, the glory of
God passed through them. As all the seed of Abram was con-
cerned, one of every kind of animal suitable for sacrifice was
taken, ut ex toto populo et singulis partibus sacrificvum unum
fieret {Calvin). The age of the animals, three years old, was
supposed by Theodoret to refer to the three generations of
Israel which were to remain in Egypt, or the three centuries
of captivity in a foreign land ; and this is rendered very probable
by the fact, that in Judg. vi. 25 the bullock of seven years old
undoubtedly refers to the seven years of Midianitish oppression.
On the other hand, we cannot find in the six halves of the three
animals and the undivided birds, either 7 things or the sacred
number 7, for two undivided birds cannot represent one whole,
but two ; nor can we attribute to the eight pieces any symbolical
meaning, for these numbers necessarily followed from the choice
of one specimen of every kind of animal that was fit for sacri-
fice, and from the division of the larger animals into two. — Ver.
11. " Then birds of prey (&¥>} with the article, as chap. xiv. 13)
came down upon the carcases, and Abram frightened them away"
The birds of prey represented the foes of Israel, who would
seek to eat up, i.e. exterminate it. And the fact that Abram
frightened them away was a sign, that Abram's faith and his
relation to the Lord would preserve the whole of his posterity
from destruction, that Israel would be saved for Abram's sake
(Ps. cv. 42).
Vers. 12-17. " And when the sun was just about to go doivn
(on the construction, see Ges. § 132), and deep sleep (HETtf), as
in chap. ii. 21, a deep sleep produced by God) had fallen upon
Abram, behold there fell upon him terror, great darkness." The
vision here passes into a prophetic sleep produced by God. In
this sleep there fell upon Abram dread and darkness ; this is
shown by the interchange of the perfect r6sj and the participle
riVsi). The reference to the time is intended to show " the
supernatural character of the darkness and sleep, and the dis-
tinction between the vision and a dream" (0. v. Gerlach). It
also possesses a symbolical meaning. The setting of the sun
prefigured to Abram the departure of the sun of grace, which
shone upon Israel, and the commencement of a dark and dread-
ful period of suffering for his posterity, the very anticipation of
216 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
which involved Abram in darkness. For the words which he
heard in the darkness were these (vers. 13 sqq.) : " Know of a
sure t y, that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not thews,
and shall serve them (the lords of the strange land), and they (the
foreigners) shall oppress them 400 years." That these words
had reference to the sojourn of the children of Israel in Egypt,
is placed beyond all doubt by the fulfilment. The 400 years
were, according to prophetic language, a round number for the
430 years that Israel spent in Egypt (Ex. xii. 40). " Also
that nation who7n they shall serve will /judge (see the fulfilment,
Ex. vi. 11) ; and afterward shall they come out icith great sub-
stance (the actual fact according to Ex. xii. 31-36). And thou
shalt go to thy fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age
(cf. chap. xxv. 7, 8) ; and in the fourth generation they shall come
hither again." The calculations are made here on the basis of a
hundred years to a generation : not too much for those times,
when the average duration of life was above 150 years, and
Isaac was born in the hundredth year of Abraham's life. " For
the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." Amorite, the name
of the most powerful tribe of the Canaanites, is used here as the
common name of all the inhabitants of Canaan, just as in Josh,
xxiv. 15 (cf. x. 5), Judg. vi. 10, etc.). — By this revelation
Abram had the future history of his seed pointed out to him in
general outlines, and was informed at the same time why
neither he nor his descendants could obtain immediate posses-
sion of the promised land, viz. because the Canaanites were not
yet ripe for the sentence of extermination. — Ver. 17. When
the sun had gone down, and thick darkness had come on (n*H
impersonal), " behold a smoking furnace, and (with) a fiery
torch, which passed between those pieces," — a description of what
Abram saw in his deep prophetic sleep, corresponding to the
mysterious character of the whole proceeding. "V^n, a stove, is
a cylindrical fire-pot, such as is used in the dwelling-houses of
the East. The phenomenon, which passed through the pieces
as they lay opposite to one another, resembled such a smoking
stove, from which a fiery torch, i.e. a brilliant flame, was
streaming forth. In this symbol Jehovah manifested Himself
to Abram, just as He afterwards did to the people of Israel in
the pillar of cloud and fire. Passing through the pieces, He
ratified the covenant which He made with Abram. His elorv
CHAP. XV. 18-21. 217
was enveloped in fire and smoke, the product of the consuming
fire, — both symbols of the wrath of God (cf. Ps. xviii. 9, and
Hengstenberg in loc), whose fiery zeal consumes whatever
opposes it (yid. Ex. iii. 2). — To establish and give reality to the
covenant to be concluded with Abram, Jehovah would have
to pass through the seed of Abram when oppressed by the
Egyptians and threatened with destruction, and to execute
judgment upon their oppressors (Ex. vii. 4, xii. 12). In this
symbol, the passing of the Lord between the pieces meant
something altogether different from the oath of the Lord by
Himself in chap. xxii. 16, or by His life in Deut. xxxii. 40, or
by His soul in Amos vi. 8 and Jer. li. 14. It set before Abram
the condescension of the Lord to his seed, in the fearful glory
of His majesty as the judge of their foes. Hence the pieces
were not consumed by the fire ; for the transaction had refer-
ence not to a sacrifice, which God accepted, and in which the
soul of the offerer was to ascend in the smoke to God, but to a
covenant in which God came down to man. From the nature
of this covenant, it followed, however, that God alone went
through the pieces in a symbolical representation of Himself,
and not Abram also. For although a covenant always estab-
lishes a reciprocal relation between two individuals, yet in that
covenant which God concluded with a man, the man did not
stand on an equality with God, but God established the relation
of fellowship by His promise and His gracious condescension to
the man, who was at first purely a recipient, and was only
qualified and bound to fulfil the obligations consequent upon
the covenant by the reception of gifts of grace.
In vers. 18-21 this divine revelation is described as the mak-
ing of a covenant (^^3, from n"}3 to cut, lit. the bond concluded
by cutting up the sacrificial animals), and the substance of this
covenant is embraced in the promise, that God would give that
land to the seed of Abram, from the river of Egypt to the great
river Euphrates. The river (1H3) of Egypt is the Nile, and not
the brook (^rn) of Egypt (Num. xxxiv. 5), i.e. the boundary
stream Rhinocorura, Wady el Arish. According to the oratori-
cal character of the promise, the two large rivers, the Nile and
the Euphrates, are mentioned as the boundaries within which
the seed of Abram would possess the promised land, the exact
limits of which are more minutely described in the list of the
TENT. — VOL. T. T
2 1 8 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
tribes who were then in possession. Ten tribes are mentioned
between the southern border of the land and the extreme north,
" to convey the impression of universality without exception, of
unqualified completeness, the symbol of which is the number
ten" (Delitzsch). In other passages we find sometimes seven
tribes mentioned (Deut. vii. 1 ; Josh. iii. 10), at other times six
(Ex. iii. 8, 17, xxiii. 23 ; Deut. xx. 17), at others five (Ex. xiii.
5), at others again only two (chap. xiii. 7) ; whilst occasionally
they are all included in the common name of Canaanites (chap.
xii. 6). The absence of the Hivites is striking here, since they
are not omitted from any other list where as many as five or seven
tribes are mentioned. Out of the eleven descendants of Canaan
(chap. x. 15-18) the names of four only are given here; the
others are included in the common name of Canaanites. On
the other hand, four tribes are given, whose descent from Canaan
is very improbable. The origin of the Kenites cannot be deter-
mined. According to Judg. i. 16, iv. 11, Hobab, the brother-
in-law of Moses, was a Kenite. His being called a Midianite
(Num. x. 29) does not prove that he was descended from Midian
(Gen. xxv. 2), but is to be accounted for from the fact that he
dwelt in the land of Midian, or among the Midianites (Ex. ii. 15).
This branch of the Kenites went with the Israelites to Canaan,
into the wilderness of Judah (Judg. i. 16), and dwelt even in
Saul's time among the Amalekites on the southern border of
Judah (1 Sam. xv. 6), and in the same towns with members of
the tribe of Judah (1 Sam. xxx. 29). There is nothing either
in this passage, or in Num. xxiv. 21, 22, to compel us to distin-
guish these Midianitish Kenites from those of Canaan. The
Philistines also were not Canaanites, and yet their territory was
assigned to the Israelites. And just as the Philistines had forced
their way into the land, so the Kenites may have taken posses-
sion of certain tracts of the country. All that can be inferred
from the two passages is, that there were Kenites outside Midian,
who were to be exterminated by the Israelites. On the Keni: zites,
all that can be affirmed with certainty is, that the name is neither
to be traced to the Edomitish Kenaz (chap, xxxvi. 15, 42), nor
to be identified with the Kenezite Jcplmnneh, the father of
Caleb of Judah (Num. xxxii. 12 ; Josh. xiv. 6 : see my Comm.
on Joshua, p. 356, Eng. tr.). — The Kadmonites are never men-
tioned ajrain, and their oriffin cannot be determined. On the
CHAP. XVI. 1-14. 219
Perizzites see chap. xiii. 7 ; on the Rephaims, chap. xiv. 5 ; and
on the other names, chap. x. 15, 16.
BIRTH OF ISHMAEL. — CHAP. XVI.
Vers. 1—6. As the promise of a lineal heir (chap. xv. 4) did
not seem likely to be fulfilled, even after the covenant had been
made, Sarai resolved, ten years after their entrance into Canaan,
to give her Egyptian maid Hagar to her husband, that if possible
she might " be built up by her" i.e. obtain children, who might
found a house or family (chap. xxx. 3). The resolution seemed
a judicious one, and according to the customs of the East, there
would be nothing wrong in carrying it out. Hence Abraham
consented without opposition, because, as Malachi (ii. 1 5) says,
he sought the seed promised by God. But they were both of
them soon to learn, that their thoughts were the thoughts of man
and not of God, and that their wishes and actions were not in
accordance with the divine promise. Sarai, the originator of the
plan, was the first to experience its evil consequences. When
the maid was with child by Abram, " her mistress became little in
her eyes." When Sarai complained to Abram of the contempt
she received from her maid (saying, " My wrong" the wrong done
to me, " come upon thee" cf. Jer. Ii. 35 ; Gen. xxvii. 13), and
called upon Jehovah to judge between her and her husband,1
Abram gave her full power to act as mistress towards her maid,
without raising the slave who was made a concubine above her
position. But as soon as Sarai made her feel her power, Hagar
fled. Thus, instead of securing the fulfilment of their wishes,
Sarai and Abram had reaped nothing but grief and vexation,
and apparently had lost the maid through their self-concerted
scheme. But the faithful covenant God turned the whole into
a blessing.
Vers. 7-14. Hagar no doubt intended to escape to Egypt by
a road used from time immemorial, that ran from Hebron past
Beersheba, " by the way of Shur." — Shur, the present Jifar, is
the name given to the north-western portion of the desert of
Arabia (cf. Ex. xv. 22). There the angel of the Lord found
1 1*2*3, with a point over the second Jod, to show that it is irregular
and suspicious ; since pa with the singular suffix is always treated as a sin-
gular, and only with a plural suffix as plural.
220 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
her by a well, and directed her to return to her mistress, and
submit to her ; at the same time he promised her the birth of a
son, and an innumerable multiplication of her descendants. As
the fruit of her womb was the seed of Abram, she was to return
to his house and there bear him a son, who, though not the seed
promised by God, would be honoured for Abram's sake with the
blessing of an innumerable posterity. For this reason also
Jehovah appeared to her in the form of the Angel of Jehovah
(cf. p. 129). rfin is adj. verb, as in chap, xxxviii. 24, etc. : " tliou
art with child and wilt bear;' V\^h for Trlf (chap. xvii. 19) is
found again in Judg. xiii. 5, 7. This son she was to call Ishmael
(" God hears "), "for Jehovah hath hearkened to thy distress"
^H afflictionem sine dubio vocat, quam Hacjar ajflictionem sentiebat
esse, nempe conditionem servitem et quod castigata esset a Sara
{Luther). It was Jehovah, not Elohim, who had heard, although
the latter name was most naturally suggested as the explanation
of Ishmael, because the hearing, i.e. the multiplication of
Ishmael's descendants, was the result of the covenant grace of
Jehovah. Moreover, in contrast with the oppression which she
had endured and still would endure, she received the promise
that her son would endure no such oppression. " lie will be a
wild ass of a man" The figure of a N?B, onager, that wild and
untameable animal, roaming at its will in the desert, of which
so highly poetic a description is given in Job xxxix. 5—8, depicts
most aptly "the Bedouin's boundless love of freedom as he rides
about in the desert, spear in hand, upon his camel or his horse,
hardy, frugal, revelling in the varied beauty of nature, and de-
spising town life in every form ;" and the words, " his hand icill
be against every man, and every mans hand against him," describe
most truly the incessant state of feud, in which the Ishinaelites
live with one another or with their neighbours. " ITc will dwell
before the face of all his brethren." ^3 ?V denotes, it is true, to
the east of (cf. chap. xxv. 18), and this meaning is to be retained
here ; but the geographical notice of the dwelling-place of the
Ishmaelites hardly exhausts the force of the expression, which
also indicated that Ishmael would maintain an independent
standing before (in the presence of) all the descendants of
Abraham. History has confirmed this promise. The Ish-
maelites have continued to this day in free and undiminished
possession of the extensive peninsula between the Euphrates, the
CHAP. XVI. 7-14. 221
Straits of Suez, and the Bed Sea, from which they have over-
spread both Northern Africa and Southern Asia. — Ver. 13.
In the angel, Hagar recognised God manifesting Himself to her,
the presence of Jehovah, and called Him, " Thou art a God of
seeing; for she said, Have I also seen here after seeing V Believ-
ing that a man must die if he saw God (Ex. xx. 19, xxxiii. 20),
Hagar was astonished that she had seen God and remained
alive, and called Jehovah, who had spoken to her, "God of
seeing," i.e. who allows Himself to be seen, because here, on the
spot where this sight was granted her, after seeing she still saw,
i.e. remained alive. From this occurrence the well received
the name of " well of the seeing alive" i.e. at which a man saw
God and remained alive. Beer-lahai-roi : according to Eivald,
"•SO ""n is to be regarded as a composite noun, and ?asa sign of
the genitive ; but this explanation, in which *K*1 is treated as a
pausal form of *&TJ, does not suit the form l|Kil with the accent
upon the last syllable, which points rather to the participle n^h
with the first pers. suffix. On this ground Delitzsch and others
have decided in favour of the interpretation given in the Chaldee
version, " Thou art a God of seeing, i.e. the all-seeing, from
whose all-seeing eye the helpless and forsaken is not hidden even
in the farthest corner of the desert." "Have I not even here (in
the barren land of solitude) looked after Him, who saw meV and
Beer-lahai-roi, " the well of the Living One who sees me, i.e. of
the omnipresent Providence." But still greater difficulties lie in
the way of this view. It not only overthrows the close connection
between this and the similar passages chap, xxxii. 31, Ex. xxxiii.
20, Judg. xiii. 22, where the sight of God excites a fear of death,
but it renders the name, which the well received from this ap-
pearance of God, an inexplicable riddle. If Hagar called the
God who appeared to her i&n *?$ because she looked after Him
whom she saw, i.e. as we must necessarily understand the word,
saw not His face, but only His back ; how could it ever occur
to her or to any one else, to call the well Beer-lahai-roi, " well
of the Living One, who sees me," instead of Beer-el-roi ? More-
over, what completely overthrows this explanation, is the fact
that neither in Genesis nor anywhere in the Pentateuch is God
called "the Living One;" and throughout the Old Testament it
is only in contrast with the dead gods or idols of the heathen, a
contrast never thought of here, that the expressions *n Dv6k and
222 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
*n 7X occur, whilst *nft is never used in the Old Testament as a
name of God. For these reasons we must abide by the first ex-
planation, and change the reading 'K8! into *&}} With regard
to the well, it is still further added that it was between Kadesh
(sir. 7) and Bered. Though Bered has not been discovered,
Rowland believes, with good reason, that he has found the well
of Hagar, which is mentioned again in chap. xxiv. 62, xxv. 11,
in the spring Aim Kades, to the south of Beersheba, at the lead-
ing place of encampment of the caravans passing from Syria to
Sinai, viz. Moyle, or Moilahi, or Muweilih (Robinson, Pal. i. p.
280), which the Arabs call Moilahi Hagar, and in the neigh-
bourhood of which they point out a rock Beit Hagar. Bered
must lie to the west of this.
Vers. 15—16. Having returned to Abram's house, Hagar bare
him a son in his 86th year. He gave it the name Ishmael, and
regarded it probably as the promised seed, until, thirteen years
afterwards, the counsel of God was more clearly unfolded to him.
SEALING OF THE COVENANT BY THE GIVING OF NEW NAMES
AND BY THE KITE OF CIRCUMCISION. — CHAP. XVII.
Vers. 1-14. The covenant had been made with Abram for
at least fourteen years, and yet Abram remained without any
visible sign of its accomplishment, and was merely pointed in
faith to the inviolable character of the promise of God. Jeho-
vah now appeared to Him again, when he was ninety-nine years
old, twenty-four years after his migration, and thirteen after the
birth of Ishmael, to give effect to the covenant and prepare for
its execution. Having come down to Abram in a visible form
(ver 22), He said to him, "I am El Shaddai (almighty God):
walk before Me and be blameless." At the establishment of the
1 The objections to this change in the accentuation are entirely counter-
balanced by the grammatical difficulty connected with the second explana-
tion. If, for example, ""Si is a participle with the 1st pers. suff., it should
be written ijfco (Isa. xxix. 15) or >jjo (Isa. xlvii. 10). ^T cannot mean,
" who sees me," but " my seer," an expression utterly inapplicable to God,
which cannot be supported by a reference to Job vii. 8, for the accentuation
varies there ; and the derivation of '•jri from in~i " eye of the seeing," for
the eye which looks after me, is apparently fully warranted by the analo-
gous expression n*"6 nD'X in Jer. xiii. 21.
CHAP. XVII. 1-14. 223
covenant, God had manifested Himself to him as Jehovah (xv.
7) ; here Jehovah describes Himself as El Shaddai, God the
Mighty One. vnB>: from TJB> to be strong, with the substantive
termination ai, like ^n the festal, *&&[ the old man, VD the
thorn-grown, etc. This name is not to be regarded as identical
with Elohim, that is to say, with God as Creator and Preserver
of the world, although in simple narrative Elohim is used for
El Shaddai, which is only employed in the more elevated and
solemn style of writing. It belonged to the sphere of salvation,
forming one element in the manifestation of Jehovah, and de-
scribing Jehovah, the covenant God, as possessing the power to
realize His promises, even when the order of nature presented
no prospect of their fulfilment, and the powers of nature were
insufficient to secure it. The name which Jehovah thus gave
to Himself was to be a pledge, that in spite of " his own body
now dead," and "the deadness of Sarah's womb" (Rom. iv. 19),
God could and would give him the promised innumerable pos-
terity. On the other hand, God required this of Abram, " Walk
before Me (cf. chap.v.22)tmd be blameless" (vi. 9). "Just as right-
eousness received in faith was necessary for the establishment of
the covenant, so a blameless walk before God was required for the
maintenance and confirmation of the covenant." This introduction
is followed by a more definite account of the new revelation ; first
of the promise involved in the new name of God (vers. 2-8), and
then of the obligation imposed upon Abram (vers. 9-14). " /
will give My covenant" says the Almighty, " between Me and thee,
and multiply thee exceedingly." 11*13 jn: signifies, not to make a
covenant, but to give, to put, i.e. to realize, to set in operation
the things promised in the covenant — equivalent to setting up
the covenant (cf. ver. 7 and ix. 12 with ix. 9). This promise
Abram appropriated to himself by falling upon his face in wor-
ship, upon which God still further expounded the nature of the
covenant about to be executed. — Ver. 4. On the part of God
C^ placed at the beginning absolutely: so far as I am concerned,
for my part) it was to consist of this : (1) that God would make
Abram the father (2N instead of "OS chosen with reference to
the name Abram) of a multitude of nations, the ancestor of
nations and kings; (2) that He would be God, show Himself to
be God, in an eternal covenant relation, to him and to his pos-
terity, according to their families, according to all their succes-
224 tiii: fibst book of moses.
sive generations ; and (3) that He would give them the land in
which he had wandered as a foreigner, viz. all Canaan, for an
everlasting possession. As a pledge of this promise God changed
his name D"J2X5 i.e. high father, into Brnax, i.e. father of the
multitude, from 3X and Drn? Arab, ruham — multitude. In this
name God gave him a tangible pledge of the fulfilment of His
covenant, inasmuch as a name which God gives cannot be a
mere empty sound, but must be the expression of something
real, or eventually acquire reality. — Vers. 9 sqq. On the part of
Abraham (HHX1 thou, the antithesis to *2N|, as for me, ver. 4) God
required that he and his descendants in all generations should
keep the covenant, and that as a sign he should circumcise him-
self and every male in his house, ^ft? Niph. of ?V2, and Q^?P?
perf. Niph. for Efi>Q3? from ?po=7iD. As the sign of the covenant,
circumcision is called in ver. 13, "the covenant in the flesh" so
far as the nature of the covenant was manifested in the flesh.
It was to be extended not only to the seed, the lineal descend-
ants of Abraham, but to all the males in his house, even to
every foreign slave not belonging to the seed of Abram, whether
born in the house or acquired (i.e. bought) with money, and to
the " son of eight days," i.e. the male child eight days old ; with
the threat that the uncircumcised should be exterminated from
his people, because by neglecting circumcision he had broken
the covenant with God. The form of speech fc^nn traan rtfnai,
by which many of the laws are enforced (cf. Ex. xii. 15, 19;
Lev. vii. 20, 21, 25, etc.), denotes not rejection from the
nation, or banishment, but death, whether by a direct judgment
from God, an untimely death at the hand of God, or by the
punishment of death inflicted by the congregation or the magis-
trates, and that whether riOV niD is added, as in Ex. xxxi. 14,
etc., or not. This is very evident from Lev. xvii. 9, 10, where
the extermination to be effected by the authorities is distinguished
from that to be executed by God Himself (see my biblische
Archdologie ii. § 153, 1). In this sense we sometimes find, in the
place of the earlier expression "from his people," i.e. his nation,
such expressions as "from among his people" (Lev. xvii. 4, 10 ;
Num. xv. 30), "from Israel" (Ex. xii. 15 ; Num. xix. 13), " from
the congregation of Israel" (Ex. xii. 19); and instead of "that
soul/' in Lev. xvii. 4, 9 (cf. Ex. xxx. 33, 38), we find "that man."
Vers. 15-21. The appointment of the sign of the covenant
CHAP. XVII. 15-21. 225
was followed by this further revelation as to the promised seed,
that Abram would receive it through his wife Sarai. In confir-
mation of this her exalted destiny, she was no longer to be called
Sarai (*"&, probably from "nfe> with the termination ai, the
princely), but rn|>, the princess ; for she was to become nations,
the mother of kings of nations. Abraham then fell upon his face
and laughed, saying in himself {i.e. thinking), " Shall a child be
bom to him that is a hundred years old, or shall Sarah, that is
ninety years old, bear?" " The promise was so immensely great,
that he sank in adoration to the ground, and so immensely para-
doxical, that he could not help laughing" (Bel.). " Not that he
either ridiculed the promise of God, or treated it as a fable, or
rejected it altogether; but, as often happens when things occur
which are least expected, partly lifted up with joy, partly carried
out of himself with wonder, he burst out into laughter" (Calvin).
In this- joyous amazement he said to God (ver. 18), " 0 that
Ishmael might live before Thee ! " To regard these words, with
Calvin and others, as intimating that he should be satisfied with
the prosperity of Ishmael, as though he durst not hope for any-
thing higher, is hardly sufficient. The prayer implies anxiety,
lest Ishmael should have no part in the blessings of the covenant.
God answers, " Yes (?3S imo), Sarah thy wife bears thee a son,
and thou wilt call his name Isaac (according to the Greek form
'Icraa/c, for the Hebrew pny^, i.e. laugher, with reference to
Abraham's laughing; ver. 17, cf. xxi. 6), and I will establish My
covenant with him" i.e. make him the recipient of the covenant
grace. And the prayer for Ishmael God would also grant : Pie
would make him very fruitful, so that he should beget twelve
princes and become a great nation. But the covenant, God
repeated (ver. 21), should be established with Isaac, whom
Sarah was to bear to him at that very time in the following
year. — Since Ishmael therefore was excluded from participating
in the covenant grace, which was ensured to Isaac alone ; and
yet Abraham was to become a multitude of nations, and that
through Sarah, who was to become " nations " through the son
she was to bear (ver. 16); the "multitude of nations" could
not include either the Ishmaelites or the tribes descended from
the sons of Keturah (chap. xxv. 2 sqq.), but the descendants of
Isaac alone ; and as one of Isaac's two sons received no part of
the covenant promise, the descendants of Jacob alone. But the
226 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
whole of the twelve sons of Jacob founded only the one nation
of Israel, with which Jehovah established the covenant made
with Abraham (Ex. vi. and xx.-xxiv.), so that Abraham
became through Israel the lineal father of one nation only.
From this it necessarily follows, that the posterity of Abraham,
which was to expand into a multitude of nations, extends be-
yond this one lineal posterity, and embraces the spiritual
posterity also, i.e. all nations who are grafted e'/c 7r/crrea>9
'Afipad/x into the seed of Abraham (Rom. iv. 11, 12, and
16, 17). Moreover, the fact that the seed of Abraham was
not to be restricted to his lineal descendants, is evident from
the fact, that circumcision as the covenant sign was not con-
fined to them, but extended to all the inmates of his house, so
that these strangers were received into the fellowship of the
covenant, and reckoned as part of the promised seed. Now, if
the whole land of Canaan was promised to this posterity, which
was to increase into a multitude of nations (ver. 8), it is per-
fectly evident, from what has just been said, that the sum and
substance of the promise was not exhausted by the gift of the
land, whose boundaries are described in chap. xv. 18-21, as a
possession to the nation of Israel, but that the extension of the
idea of the lineal posterity, "Israel after the flesh," to the spi-
ritual posterity, " Israel after the spirit," requires the expansion
of the idea and extent of the earthly Canaan to the full extent
of the spiritual Canaan, whose boundaries reach as widely as the
multitude of nations having Abraham as father; and, therefore,
that in reality Abraham received the promise " that he should
be the heir of the world" (Rom. iv. Yd)}
And what is true of the seed of Abraham and the land of
Canaan must also hold good of the covenant and the covenant sign.
1 What stands out clearly in this promise — viz. the fact that the expres-
sions " seed of Abraham" (people of Israel) and " land of Canaan " are not
exhausted in the physical Israel and earthly Canaan, but are to be under-
stood spiritually, Israel and Canaan acquiring the typical significance of the
people of God and land of the Lord — is still farther expanded by the pro-
phets, and most distinctly expressed in the New Testament by Christ and
the apostles. This scriptural and spiritual interpretation of the Old Testa-
ment is entirely overlooked by those who, like Aidjerlen, restrict all the
promises of God and the prophetic proclamations of salvation to the phy-
sical Israel, and reduce the application of them to the " Israel after the
spirit," i.e. to believing Christendom, to a mere accommodation.
CHAP. XVII. 22-27. 227
Eternal duration was promised only to the covenant established
by God with the seed of Abraham, which was to grow into a
multitude of nations, but not to the covenant institution which
God established in connection with the lineal posterity of Abra-
ham, the twelve tribes of Israel. Everything in this institution
which was of a local and limited character, and only befitted the
physical Israel and the earthly Canaan, existed only so long as
was necessary for the seed of Abraham to expand into a multi-
tude of nations. So again it was only in its essence that circum-
cision could be a sign of the eternal covenant. Circumcision,
whether it passed from Abraham to other nations, or sprang up
among other nations independently of Abraham and his descend-
ants (see my Archaologie, § 63, 1), was based upon the religious
view, that the sin and moral impurity which the fall of Adam
had introduced into the nature of man had concentrated itself
in the sexual organs, because it is in sexual life that it generally
manifests itself with peculiar force ; and, consequently, that for
the sanctification of life, a purification or sanctification of the
organ of generation, by which life is propagated, is especially re-
quired. In this way circumcision in the flesh became a sym-
bol of the circumcision, i.e. the purification, of the heart (Deut.
x. 16, xxx. 6, cf. Lev. xxvi. 41, Jer. iv. 4, ix. 25, Ezek. xliv. 7),
and a covenant sign to those who received it, inasmuch as they
were received into the fellowship of the holy nation (Ex. xix. 6),
and required to sanctify their lives, in other words, to fulfil all
that the covenant demanded. It was to be performed on every
boy on the eighth day after its birth, not because the child, like
its mother, remains so long in a state of impurity, but because,
as the analogous rule with regard to the fitness of young animals
for sacrifice would lead us to conclude, this was regarded as the
first day of independent existence (Lev. xxii. 27; Ex. xxii. 29;
see my Archaologie, § 63).
Vers. 22-27. When God had finished His address and as-
cended again, Abraham immediately fulfilled the covenant duty
enjoined upon him, by circumcising himself on that very day,
along with all the male members of his house. Because Ishmael
was 13 years old when he was circumcised, the Arabs even now
defer circumcision to a much later period than the Jews, gene-
rally till between the ages of 5 and 13, and frequently even till
the 13th year.
228 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
VISIT OF JEHOVAH, WITH TWO ANGELS, TO ABRAHAM'S TENT.
CHAP. XVIII.
Having been received into the covenant with God through
the rite of circumcision, Abraham was shortly afterwards hon-
oured by being allowed to receive and entertain the Lord and
two angels in his tent. This fresh manifestation of God had a
double purpose, viz. to establish Sarah's faith in the promise
that she should bear a son in her old age (vers. 1-15), and to
announce the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah (vers. 1G-33).
Vers. 1-15. When sitting, about mid-day, in the grove of
Mamre, in front of his tent, Abraham looked up and unexpect-
edly saw three men standing at some distance from him (Ivy
above him, looking down upon him as he sat), viz. Jehovah (ver.
13) and two angels (xix. 1) ; all three in human form. Per-
ceiving at once that one of them was the Lord (^'"IK, i.e. God),
he prostrated himself reverentially before them, and entreated
them not to pass him by, but to suffer him to entertain them as
his guests : " Let a little water be fetched, and wash your feet, and
recline yourselves ($&>} to recline, leaning upon the arm) under
the tree." — " Comfort your hearts ;" lit. " strengthen the heart,"
i.e. refresh yourselves by eating and drinking (Judg. xix. .5;
1 Kings xxi. 7). "For therefore {sc. to give me an opportunity to
entertain you hospitably) have ye come over to your servant :" ^
|3 ?y does not stand for ""S J3 ?y (Ges. thes. p. 682), but means
" because for this purpose" (yid. Fivald, § 353). — Vers. 6 sqq.
When the three men had accepted the hospitable invitation,
Abraham, just like a Bedouin sheikh of the present day, directed
his wife to take three seahs (374 cubic inches each) of fine*meal,
and bake cakes of it as quickly as possible (niay round un-
leavened cakes baked upon hot stones) ; he also had a tender
calf killed, and sent for milk and butter, or curdled milk, and
thus prepared a bountiful and savoury meal, of which the guests
partook. The eating of material food on the part of these
heavenly beings was not in appearance only, but was really
eating ; an act which may be attributed to the corporeality
assumed, and is to be regarded as analogous to the eating on the
part of the risen and glorified Christ (Luke xxiv. 41 sqq.),
although the miracle still remains physiologically incomprehen-
sible.— Vers. 9-15. During the meal, at which Abraham stood,
CHAP. XVIII. 16-33. 229
and waited upon them as the host, they asked for Sarah, for
whom the visit was chiefly intended. On being told that she
was in the tent, where she could hear, therefore, all that passed
under the tree in front of the tent, the one whom Abraham ad-
dressed as Adonai (my Lord), and who is called Jehovah in
ver. 13, said, " I will return to thee (<l»n DJJ3) at this time, when it
lives again " (Hsn, reviviscens, without the article, Ges. §111, 2b),
i.e. at this time next year ; " and, behold, Sarah, thy voife, will
(then) have a son." Sarah heard this at the door of the tent ;
"and it teas behind Him" (Jehovah), so that she could not be
seen by Him as she stood at the door. But as the fulfilment of
this promise seemed impossible to her, on account of Abraham's
extreme age, and the fact that her own womb had lost the
power of conception, she laughed within herself, thinking that
she was not observed. But that she might know that the pro-
mise was made by the omniscient and omnipotent God, He
reproved her for laughing, saying, "Is anything too wonderful
(i.e. impossible) for Jehovah f at the time appointed I will return
unto thee" etc. ; and when her perplexity led her to deny it, He
convicted her of falsehood. Abraham also had laughed at this
promise (chap. xvii. 17), and without receiving any reproof. For
his laughing was the joyous outburst of astonishment ; Sarah's,
on the contrary, the result of doubt and unbelief, which had to
be broken down by reproof, and, as the result showed, really was
broken down, inasmuch as she conceived and bore a son, whom
she could only have conceived in faith (Heb. xi. 11).
Vers. 16-33. After this conversation with Sarah, the hea-
venly guests rose up and turned their faces towards the plain of
Sodom (^B bv, as in chap. xix. 28 ; Num. xxi. 20, xxiii. 28).
Abraham accompanied them some distance on the road ; accord-
ing to tradition, he went as far as the site of the later Caphar
barucha, from which you can see the Dead Sea through a ravine,
— solitudinem ac terras Sodomce. And Jehovah said, " Shall I
hide from Abraham what I propose to do 1 Abraham is destined
to be a great nation and a blessing to all nations (xii. 2, 3) ; for
I have known, i.e. acknowledged him (chosen him in anticipative
.Jove, Vy as in Amos iii. 2 ; Hos. xiii. 4), that he may command
his whole posterity to~keep the way of Jehovah, to practise
justice and righteousness, that all the promises may be fulfilled
in them." God then disclosed to Abraham what he was about
230 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
to do to Sodom and Gomorrah, not, as Kurtz supposes, because
Abraham had been constituted the hereditary possessor of the
land, and Jehovah, being mindful of His covenant, would not
do anything to it without his knowledge and assent (a thought
quite foreign to the context), but because Jehovah had chosen
him to be the father of the people of God, in order that, by in-
structing his descendants in the fear of God, he might lead them
in the paths of righteousness, so that they might become par-
takers of the promised salvation, and not be overtaken by judg-
ment. The destruction of Sodom and the surrounding cities
was to be a permanent memorial of the punitive righteousness
of God, and to keep the fate of the ungodly constantly before
the mind of Israel. To this end Jehovah explained to Abraham
the cause of their destruction in the clearest manner possible,
that he might not only be convinced of the justice of the divine
government, but might learn that when the measure of iniquity
was full, no intercession could avert the judgment, — a lesson
and a warning to his descendants also. — Ver. 20. " The cry of
Sodom and Gomorrah, yea it is great ; and their sin, yea it is
very grievous? The cry is the appeal for vengeance or punish-
ment, which ascends to heaven (chap. iv. 10). The ^ serves to
give emphasis to the assertion, and is placed in the middle of the
sentence to give the greater prominence to the leading thought
(cf. Ewald, § 330). — Ver. 21. God was about to go down, and
convince Himself whether they had done entirely according to
the cry which had reached Him, or not. 7U2 nb/y, lit. to make
completeness, here referring to the extremity of iniquity, gene-
rally to the extremity of punishment (Nahum i. 8, 9 ; Jer. iv.
27, v. 10) : H73 is a noun, as Isa. x. 23 shows, not an adverb, as
in Ex. xi. 1. After this explanation, the men (according to
chap. xix. 1, the two angels) turned from thence to go to Sodom
(ver. 22) ; but Abraham continued standing before Jehovah,
who had been talking with him, and approached Him with ear-
nestness and boldness of faith to intercede for Sodom. He was
urged to this, not by any special interest in Lot, for in that case
he would have prayed for his deliverance ; nor by the circum-
stance that, as he had just before felt himself called upon to
become the protector, avenger, and deliverer of the land from
its foes, so he now thought himself called upon to act as medi-
ator, and to appeal from Jehovah's judicial wrath to Jehovah's
CHAP. XVIII. 16-33. 231
covenant grace {Kurtz), for he had not delivered the land from
the foe, but merely rescued his nephew Lot and all the booty that
remained after the enemy had withdrawn ; nor did he appeal to
the covenant grace of Jehovah, but to His justice alone ; and on
the principle that the Judge of all the earth could not possibly
destroy the righteous with the wicked, he founded his entreaty
that God would forgive the city if there were but fifty righteous
in it, or even if there were only ten. He was led to intercede
in this way, not by " communis erga quinque populos miseri-
cordia" (Calvin), but by the love which springs from the con-
sciousness that one's own preservation and rescue are due to
compassionate grace alone ; love, too, which cannot conceive of
the guilt of others as too great for salvation to be possible. This
sympathetic love, springing from the faith which was counted
for righteousness, impelled him to the intercession which Luther
thus describes : " sexies petiit, et cum tanto ardore ac affectu sic
urgente, ut pros nimia angustia, qua cupit consultum mise?is civi-
tatibus, videatur quasi stidte loqui." There may be apparent
folly in the words, " Wilt Thou also destroy the righteous with the
wickedV but they were only " violenta oratio et impetuosa, quasi
cogens Deum ad ignoscendum? For Abraham added, u per ad-
venture there he fifty righteous within the city ; ivilt Thou also
destroy and not forgive ($&}, to take away and bear the guilt,
i.e. forgive) the place for the fifty righteous that are therein ?"
and described the slaying of the righteous with the wicked as
irreconcilable with the justice of God. He knew that he was
speaking to the Judge of all the earth, and that before Him he
was " but dust and ashes" — " dust in his origin, and ashes in the
end ;" and yet he made bold to appeal still further, and even as
low as ten righteous, to pray that for their sake He would spare
the city. — DJ?sn T]K (ver. 32) signifies " only this (one) time more"
as in Ex. x. 17. This "seemingly commercial kind of entreaty
is," as Delitzsch observes, " the essence of true prayer. It is
the holy avalSeta, of which our Lord speaks in Luke xi. 8, the
shamelessness of faith, which bridges over the infinite distance
of the creature from the Creator, appeals with importunity to
the heart of God, and ceases not till its point is gained. This
wTould indeed be neither permissible nor possible, had not God,
by virtue of the mysterious interlacing of necessity and freedom
in His nature and operations, granted a power to the prayer of
232 TI1K FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
faith, to which lie consents to yield ; had He not, by virtue of
His absoluteness, which is anything but blind necessity, placed
Himself in such a relation to men, that He not merely works
upon them by means of His grace, but allows them to work
upon Him by means of their faith ; had He not interwoven the
life of the free creature into His own absolute life, and accorded
to a created personality the right to assert itself in faith, in dis-
tinction from His own." With the promise, that even for the
sake of ten righteous He would not destroy the city, Jehovah
" went His way," that is to say, vanished ; and Abraham re-
turned to his place, viz. to the grove of Mamre. The judgment
which fell upon the wicked cities immediately afterwards, proves
that there were not ten " righteous persons" in Sodom ; by which
we understand, not merely ten sinless or holy men, but ten who
through the fear of God and conscientiousness had kept them-
selves free from the prevailing sin and iniquity of these cities.
INIQUITY AND DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. ESCAPE OF LOT,
AND HIS SUBSEQUENT HISTORY. — CHAP. XIX.
Vers. 1-11. The messengers (angels) sent by Jehovah to
Sodom, arrived there in the evening, when Lot, who was sitting
at the gate, pressed them to pass the night in his house. The
gate, generally an arched entrance with deep recesses and seats
on either side, was a place of meeting in the ancient towns of
the East, where the inhabitants assembled either for social inter-
course or to transact public business (vid. chap, xxxiv. 20; Deut.
xxi. 19, xxii. 15, etc.). The two travellers, however (for such
Lot supposed them to be, and only recognised them as angels
when they had smitten the Sodomites miraculously with blind-
ness), said that they would spend the night in the street — 2in"}3
the broad open space within the gate — as they had been sent to
inquire into the state of the town. But they yielded to Lot's
entreaty to enter his house; for the deliverance of Lot, after
having ascertained his state of mind, formed part of their
commission, and entering into his house might only serve to
manifest the sin of Sodom in all its heinousness. While Lot
was entertaining his guests with the greatest hospitality, the
people of Sodom gathered round his house, " both old and young,
all people from every quarter' (of the town, as in Jer. li. 31), and
CHAP. XIX. 12-22. 233
demanded, with the basest violation of the sacred rite of hos-
pitality and the most shameless proclamation of their sin (Isa.
iii. 9), that the strangers should be brought out, that they
might know them. VT is applied, as in Judg. xix. 22, to the
carnal sin of pcederastia, a crime very prevalent among the
Canaanites (Lev. xviii. 22 sqq., xx. 23), and according to
Horn. i. 27, a curse of heathenism generally. — Vers. 6 sqq.
Lot went out to them, shut the door behind him to protect
his guests, and offered to give his virgin daughters up to
them. " Only to these men (/Nil, an archaism for npxn, occurs
also in ver. 25, chap. xxvi. 3, 4, Lev. xviii. 27, and Deut.
iv. 42, vii. 22, xix. 11 ; and bs for % in 1 Chron. xx. 8) do
nothing, for therefore (viz. to be protected from injury) have
they come under the shadow of my roof." In his anxiety, Lot
was willing to sacrifice to the sanctity of hospitality his duty as
a father, which ought to have been still more sacred, " and com-
mitted the sin of seeking to avert sin by sin." Even if he ex-
pected that his daughters would suffer no harm, as they were
betrothed to Sodomites (ver. 14), the offer was a grievous viola-
tion of his paternal duty. But this offer only heightened the
brutality of the mob. " Stand back " (make way, Isa. xlix. 20),
they said; " the man, who came as a foreigner, is always wanting
to play the judge'" (probably because Lot had frequently reproved
them for their licentious conduct, 2 Pet. ii. 7, 8) : " now will we
deal worse with thee than with them." With these words they
pressed upon him, and approached the door to break it in. The
men inside, that is to say, the angels, then pulled Lot into the
house, shut the door, and by miraculous power smote the people
without with blindness (B'HUD here and 2 Kings vi. 18 for
mental blindness, in which the eye sees, but does not see the
right object), as a punishment for their utter moral blindness,
and an omen of the coming judgment.
Vers. 12-22. The sin of Sodom bad now become manifest.
The men, Lot's guests, made themselves known to him as the
messengers of judgment sent by Jehovah, and ordered him to
remove any one that belonged to him out of the city. " Son-
in-law (the singular without the article, because it is only
assumed as a possible circumstance that he may have sons-in-
law), and thy sons, and thy daughters, and all that belongs to thee "
(sc. of persons, not of things). Sons Lot does not appear to
pent. — vol. i. O.
234 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
have had, as we read nothing more about them, but only " sons
in-law (Wto ,,np9) ivlw were about to take his daughters" as
Josephus, the Vulgate, Ewald, and many others correctly render
it. The LXX., Targums, Knobel, and Delitzsch adopt the ren-
dering " who had taken his daughters," in proof of which the
last two adduce flftWOai] in ver. 15 as decisive. But without
reasoif ; for this refers not to the daughters who were still in the
father's house, as distinguished from those who were married,
but to his wife and two daughters who were to be found with
him in the house, in distinction from the bridegrooms, who also
belonged to him, but were not yet living with him, and who
had received his summons in scorn, because in their carnal secu-
rity they did not believe in any judgment of God (Luke xvii.
28, 29). If Lot had had married daughters, he would un-
doubtedly have called upon them to escape along with their
husbands, his sons-in-law. — Ver. 15. As soon as it was dawn,
the angels urged Lot to hasten away with his family ; and
when he still delayed, his heart evidently clinging to the earthly
home and possessions which he was obliged to leave, they laid
hold of him, with his wife and his two daughters, Ivy nirn ritana,
" by virtue of the sparing mercy of Jehovah (which operated)
upon him" and led him out of the city. — Ver. 17. When they
left him here (n^n, to let loose, and leave, to leave to one's
self), the Lord commanded him, for the sake of his life, not to
look behind him, and not to stand still in all the plain p33,
xiii. 10), but to flee to the mountains (afterwards called the
mountains of Moab). In ver. 17 we are struck by the change
from the plural to the singular : " when they brought them
forth, he said." To think of one of the two angels — the one, for
example, who led the conversation — seems out of place, not only
because Lot addressed him by the name of God, "Adonai"
(ver. 18), but also because the speaker attributed to himself the
judgment upon the cities (vers. 21, 22), which is described in ver.
24 as executed by Jehovah. Yet there is nothing to indicate
that Jehovah suddenly joined the angels. The only supposi-
tion that remains, therefore, is that Lot recognised in the two
angels a manifestation of God, and so addressed them (ver. 18) as
Adonai (my Lord), and that the angel who spoke addressed him
as the messenger of Jehovah in the name of God, without its
following from this, that Jehovah was present in the two angels.
CHAP. XIX. 23-28. 235
Lot, instead <rf cheerfully obeying the commandment of the
Lord, appealed to the great mercy shown to him in the preser-
vation of his life, and to the impossibility of his escaping to the
mountains, without the evil overtaking him, and entreated
therefore that he might be allowed to take refuge in the small
and neighbouring city, i.e. in Bela, which received the name of
Zoar (chap. xiv. 2) on account of Lot's calling it little. Zoar,
the ^Vyoop of the LXX., and Segor of the Crusaders, is hardly
to be sought for on the peninsula which projects a long way
into the southern half of the Dead Sea, in the Ghor of el
Mezraa, as Irby and Robinson (Pal. iii. p. 481) suppose; it is
much more probably to be found on the south-eastern point of
the Dead Sea, in the Ghor of el Szaphia, at the opening of
the Wady el Ahsa (vid. v. Raumer, Pal. p. 273, Anm. 14).
Vers. 23-28. " When the sun had risen and Lot had come
towards Zoar (i.e. was on the way thither, but had not yet
arrived), Jehovah caused it to rain brimstone and fire from Je-
hovah out of heaven, and overthrew those cities, and the whole
plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and the produce of the
earth.'" In the words "Jehovah caused it to rain from Je-
hovah " there is no distinction implied between the hidden and
the manifested God, between the Jehovah present upon earth
in His angels who called down the judgment, and the Jehovah
enthroned in heaven who sent it down; but the expression "from
Jehovah " is emphatica repetitio, quod non usitato natures ordine
tunc Deits pluerit, sed tanquam exerta manic palam fulminaverit
prater solitum morem : ut satis constaret nullis causis naturalibus
conflatam fuisse pluviam illam ex igne et sulphure (Calvin). The
rain of fire and brimstone was not a mere storm with lightning,
which set on fire the soil already overcharged with naphtha and
sulphur. The two passages, Ps. xi. 6 and Ezek. xxxviii. 22,
cannot be adduced as proofs that lightning is ever called fire
and brimstone in the Scriptures, for in both passages there is
an allusion to the event recorded here. The words are to be
understood quite literally, as meaning that brimstone and fire,
i.e. burning brimstone, fell from the sky, even though the ex-
amples of burning bituminous matter falling upon the earth
which are given in Oedmanris vermischte Sammlungen (iii. 120)
may be called in question by historical criticism. By this rain
of fire and brimstone not only were the cities and their inhabi-
236 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
tants consumed, but even the soil, which abounded in asphalt,
was set on fire, so that the entire valley was burned out and
sank, or was overthrown (^?n) i.e. utterly destroyed, and the
Dead Sea took its place.1 In addition to Sodom, which was
probably the chief city of the valley of Siddim, Gomorrah and
the whole valley (i.e. the valley of Siddim, chap. xiv. 3) are
mentioned ; and along with these the cities of Admah and Ze-
boim, which were situated in the valley (Deut. xxix. 23, cf. Hos.
xi. 8), also perished, Zoar alone, which is at the south-eastern end
of the valley, being spared for Lot's sake. Even to the present
day the Dead Sea, with the sulphureous vapour which hangs
about it, the great blocks of saltpetre and sulphur which lie
on every hand, and the utter absence of the slightest trace of
animal and vegetable life in its waters, are a striking testimony
to this catastrophe, which is held up in both the Old and New
Testaments as a fearfully solemn judgment of God for the
warning of self-secure and presumptuous sinners. — Ver. 26. On
the way, Lot's wife, notwithstanding the divine command, looked
" behind Mm away" — i.e. went behind her husband and looked
backwards, probably from a longing for the house and the
earthly possessions she had left with reluctance (cf . Luke xvii.
31, 32), — and " became a pillar of salt" We are not to suppose
that she was actually turned into one, but having been killed by
the fiery and sulphureous vapour with which the air was filled,
and afterwards encrusted with salt, she resembled an actual
statue of salt ; just as even now, from the saline exhalation of
the Dead Sea, objects near it are quickly covered with a crust
of salt, so that the fact, to which Christ refers in Luke xvii. 32,
may be understood without supposing a miracle.2 — In vers. 27,
1 Whether the Dead Sea originated in this catastrophe, or -whether there
was previously a lake, possibly a fresh water lake, at the north of the valley
of Siddim, which was enlarged to the dimensions of the existing sea by the
destruction of the valley with its cities, and received its present character
at the tame time, is a question which has been raised, since Capt. Lynch has
discovered by actual measurement the remarkable fact, that the bottom of the
lake consists of two totally different levels, which are separated by a penin-
sula that stretches to a very great distance into the lake from the eastern
shore ; so that whilst the lake to the north of this peninsula is, on an
average, from 1000 to 1200 feet deep, the southern portion is at the most
1G feet deep, and generally much less, the bottom being covered with salt
mud, and heated by hot springs from below.
2 But when this pillar of salt is mentioned in Wisdom xi. 7 and Clemens
CHAP. XIX. 29-38. 237
28, the account closes with a remark which points back to chap,
xviii. 17 sqq., viz. that Abraham went in the morning to the
place where he had stood the day before, interceding With the
Lord for Sodom, and saw how the judgment had fallen upon
the entire plain, since the smoke of the country went up like
the smoke of a furnace. Yet his intercession had not been in
vain.
Vers. 29-38. For on the destruction of these cities, God had
thought of Abraham, and rescued Lot. This rescue is attributed
to Elohim, as being the work of the Judge of the whole earth
(chap, xviii. 25), and not to Jehovah the covenant God, because
Lot was severed from His guidance and care on his separation
from Abraham. The fact, however, is repeated here, for the
purpose of connecting with it an event in the life of Lot of
great significance to the future history of Abraham's seed. — Vers.
30 sqq. From Zoar Lot removed with his two daughters to the
(Moabitish) mountains, for fear that Zoar might after all be
destroyed, and dwelt in one of the caves (p~)V® with the generic
article), in which the limestone rocks abound (yid. Lynch), and
so became a dweller in a cave. While there, his daughters re-
solved to procure children through their father ; and to that end
on two successive evenings they made him intoxicated with wine,
and then lay with him in the night, one after the other, that
they might conceive seed. To this accursed crime they were
impelled by the desire to preserve their family, because they
thought there was no man on the earth to come in unto them,
i.e. to marry them, " after the manner of all the earth." Not
that they imagined the whole human race to have perished in
the destruction of the valley of Siddim, but because they were
afraid that no man would link himself with them, the only sur
vivors of a country smitten by the curse of God. If it was not
lust, therefore, which impelled them to this shameful deed, their
conduct was worthy of Sodom, and shows quite as much as their
previous betrothal to men of Sodom, that they were deeply im-
bued with the sinful character of that city. The words of vers.
33 and 35, " And he knew not of her lying down and of her
ad Cor. xi. as still in existence, and Josephns professes to have seen it, this
legend is probably based upon the pillar-like lumps of salt, -which are still
to be seen at Mount Usdum (Sodom), on the south- western side of the
Dead Sea.
238 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
the Rabbins are said by Jerome to have indicated by the point
over fllMpa ; " quasi incredibile et quod natura rerum non capiat,
coire quempiam nescientemV They merely mean, that in his in-
toxicated state, though not entirely unconscious, yet he lay with
his daughters without clearly knowing what he was doing. —
Vers. 36 sqq. But Lot's daughters had so little feeling of shame
in connection with their conduct, that they gave names to the
sons they bore, which have immortalized their paternity. Moab,
another form of 3XE> " from the father," as is indicated in the
clause appended in the LXX. : Xejovcra e/c rov irarpos fxov, and
also rendered probable by the reiteration of the words " of our
father" and " by their father" (vers. 32, 34, and 36), as well
as by the analogy of the name Ben-Ammi = Ammon, 'AfifAciv,
Xejovaa Tibs yevovs fiov (LXX.). For |iE>y, the sprout of the
nation, bears the same relation to DV, as pEJN, the rush or sprout
of the marsh, to GJK (Delitzscli). — This account was neither the
invention of national hatred to the Moabites and Ammonites,
nor was it placed here as a brand upon those tribes. These
discoveries of a criticism imbued with hostility to the Bible are
overthrown by the fact, that, according to Deut. ii. 9, 19, Israel
was ordered not to touch the territory of either of these tribes
because of their descent from Lot ; and it was their unbrotherly
conduct towards Israel alone which first prevented their recep-
tion into the congregation of the Lord, Deut. xxiii. 4, 5. — Lot
is never mentioned again. Separated both outwardly and in-
wardly from Abraham, he was of no further importance in
relation to the history of salvation, so that even his death is not
referred to. His descendants, however, frequently came into
contact with the Israelites ; and the history of their descent is
given here to facilitate a correct appreciation of their conduct
towards Israel.
Abraham's sojourn at gerar. — chap. xx.
Vers. 1-7. After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
Abraham removed from the grove of Mamre at Hebron to the
south country, hardly from the same fear as that which led Lot
from Zoar, but probably to seek for better pasture. Here he
dwelt between Kadesh (xiv. 7) and Shur (xvi. 7), and remained
CHAP. XX. 1-7. 239
for some time in Gerar, a place the name of which has been
preserved in the deep and broad Wady Jurf el Gerar (i.e. torrent
of Gerar) about eight miles S.S.E. of Gaza, near to which Bow-
land discovered the ruins of an ancient town bearing the name
of Kliirbet el Gerar. Here Abimelech, the Philistine king of
Gerar, like Pharaoh in Egypt, took Sarah, whom Abraham had
again announced to be his sister, into his harem, — not indeed be-
cause he was charmed with the beauty of the woman of 90, which
was either renovated, or had not yet faded (Kurtz), but in all
probability " to ally himself with Abraham, the rich nomad
prince" (Delitzsch). From this danger, into which the untruth-
ful statement of both her husband and herself had brought her,
she was once more rescued by the faithfulness of the covenant
God. In a dream by night God appeared to Abimelech, and
threatened him with death (pl2 ^|H en te moriturum) on account
of the .woman, whom he had taken, because she was married to
a husband. — Vers. 4 sqq. Abimelech, who had not yet come
near her, because God had hindered him by illness (vers. 6 and
17), excused himself on the ground that he had done no wrong,
since he had supposed Sarah to be Abraham's sister, according
to both her husband's statement and her own. This plea was
admitted by God, who told him that He had kept him from
sinning through touching Sarah, and commanded him to restore
the woman immediately to her husband, who was a prophet, that
he might pray for him and save his life, and threatened him with
certain death to himself and all belonging to him in case he
should refuse. That Abimelech, when taking the supposed
sister of Abraham into his harem, should have thought that he
was acting " in innocence of heart and purity of hands," i.e. in
perfect innocence, is to be fully accounted for, from his unde-
veloped moral and religious standpoint, by considering the cus-
toms of that day. But that God should have admitted that he
had acted " in innocence of heart," and yet should have pro-
ceeded at once to tell him that he could only remain alive through
the intercession of Abraham, that is to say, through his obtain-
ing forgiveness of a sin that was deserving of death, is a proof
that God treated him as capable of deeper moral discernment
and piety. The history itself indicates this in the very charac-
teristic variation in the names of God. First of all (ver. 3),
Elohim (without the article, i.e. Deity generally) appears to him
240 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
in a dream ; but Abimelech recognises the Lord, Adonai, i.e. God
(ver. 4); whereupon the historian represents DTi^xn (Elohim with
the article), the personal and true God, as speaking to him. The
address of God, too, also shows his susceptibility of divine truth.
Without further pointing out to him the wrong which he had
done in simplicity of heart, in taking the sister of the stranger
who had come into his land, for the purpose of increasing his
own harem, since he must have been conscious of this himself,
God described Abraham as a prophet, whose intercession alone
could remove his guilt, to show him the way of salvation. A
prophet: lit. the God-addressed or inspired, since the "inward
speaking " (Ein-sprache) or inspiration of God constitutes the
essence of prophecy. Abraham was TrpotyrjTrjs as the recipient
of divine revelation, and was thereby placed in so confidential a
relation to God, that he could intercede for sinners, and atone
for sins of infirmity through his intercession.
Vers. 8-15. Abimelech carried out the divine instructions.
The next morning he collected his servants together and related
what had occurred, at which the men were greatly alarmed.
He then sent for Abraham, and complained most bitterly of his
conduct, by which he had brought a great sin upon him and his
kingdom. — Ver. 10. " What sawest thou" i.e. what hadst thou in
thine eye, with thine act (thy false statement)? Abimelech did
this publicly in the presence of his servants, partly for his own
justification in the sight of his dependants, and partly to put
Abraham to shame. The latter had but two weak excuses : (1)
that he supposed there was no fear of God at all in the land,
and trembled for his life because of his wife ; and (2) that when
he left his father's house, he had arranged with his wife that in
every foreign place she was to call herself his sister, as she really
was his half-sister. On the subject of his emigration, he expressed
himself indefinitely and with reserve, accommodating himself to
the polytheistic standpoint of the Philistine king : " when God (or
the gods, Elohim) caused me to wander" i.e. led me to commence
an unsettled life in a foreign land ; and saying nothing about
Jehovah, and the object of his wandering as revealed by Him. —
Vers. 14 sqq. Abimelech then gave him back his wife with a
liberal present of cattle and slaves, and gave him leave to dwell
wherever he pleased in his land. To Sarah he said, " Behold, I
have given a thousand shekels of silver to thy brother ; behold, it is
CHAP. XX. 8-15. 241
to thee a covering of the eyes (i.e. an expiatory gift) with regard
to all that are with thee ("because in a mistress the whole
family is disgraced," Del.), and with all — so art thou justified."
The thousand shekels (about £131) were not a special present
made to Sarah, but indicate the value of the present made
to Abraham, the amount of which may be estimated by this
standard, that at a later date (Ex. xxi. 32) a slave was reckoned
at 30 shekels. By the " covering of the eyes" we are not to
understand a veil, which Sarah was to procure for 1000 shekels;
but it is a figurative expression for an atoning gift, and is to be
explained by the analogy of the phrase 'B \JB 1B3 " to cover any
one's face," so that he may forget a wrong done (cf. chap, xxxii.
21 ; and Job ix. 24, " he covereth the faces of the judges," i.e.
he bribes them). nnaiJl can only be the 2 pers. fem. sing. perf.
Niphal, although the Dagesh lene is wanting in the n ; for the
rules of syntax will hardly allow us to regard this form as a
participle, unless we imagine the extremely harsh ellipsis of nnsu
for fiK nri3i3. The literal meaning is " so thou art judged," i.e.
justice has been done thee. — Vers. 17, 18. After this reparation,
God healed Abimelech at Abraham's intercession ; also his wife
and maids, so that they could bear again, for Jehovah had closed
up every womb in Abimelech's house on Sarah's account, nines,
maids whom the king kept as concubines, are to be distinguished
from ninSK* female slaves (ver. 14). That there was a material
difference between them, is proved by 1 Sam. xxv. 41. "WV
DnYvS does not mean, as is frequently supposed, to prevent actual
childbirth, but to prevent conception, i.e. to produce barrenness
(1 Sam. i. 5, 6). This is evident from the expression " He hath
restrained me from bearing " in chap. xvi. 2 (cf . Isa. Ixvi. 9, and
1 Sam. xxi. 6), and from the opposite phrase, " open the womb,"
so as to facilitate conception (chap. xxix. 31, and xxx. 22). The
plague brought upon Abimelech's house, therefore, consisted of
some disease which rendered the begetting of children (the
coitus) impossible. This might have occurred as soon as Sarah
was taken into the royal harem, and therefore need not presup-
pose any lengthened stay there. There is no necessity, therefore,
to restrict VW to the women and regard it as equivalent to "Ifipfll,
which would be grammatically inadmissible ; for it may refer to
Abimelech also, since "I?J signifies to beget as well as to bear.
We may adopt KnobeVs explanation, therefore, though without
242 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
approving of the inference that ver. 18 was an appendix of the
Jehovist, and arose from a misunderstanding of the word VW in
ver. 17. A later addition ver. 18 cannot be; for the simple
reason, that without the explanation given there, the previous
verse would be unintelligible, so that it cannot have been want-
ing in any of the accounts. The name Jehovah, in contrast
with Elohim and Ila-Elohim in ver. 17, is obviously significant.
The cure of Abimelech and his wives belonged to the Deity
(Elohim). Abraham directed his intercession not to Elohim, an
indefinite and unknown God, but to DTi^n ; for the God, whose
prophet he was, was the personal and true God. It was He
too who had brought the disease upon Abimelech and his house,
not as Eloliim or Ila-Elohim, but as Jehovah, the God of salva-
tion ; for His design therein was to prevent the disturbance or
frustration of His saving design, and the birth of the promised
son from Sarah.
But if the divine names Elohim and Ha-Elohim indicate
the true relation of God to Abimelech, and here also it was
Jehovah who interposed for Abraham and preserved the mother
of the promised seed, our narrative cannot be merely an Elohistic
side-piece appended to the Jehovistic account in chap. xii. 14
sqq., and founded upon a fictitious legend. The thoroughly
distinctive character of this event is a decisive proof of the
fallacy of any such critical conjecture. Apart from the one
point of agreement — the taking of Abraham's wife into the royal
harem, because he said she was his sister in the hope of thereby
saving his own life (an event, the repetition of which in the
space of 24 years is by no means startling, when we consider the
customs of the age) — all the more minute details are entirely
different in the two cases. In king Abimelech we meet with a
totally different character from that of Pharaoh. We see iu
him a heathen imbued with a moral consciousness of right, and
open to receive divine revelation, of which there is not the
slightest trace in the king of Egypt. And Abraham, in spite
of his natural weakness, and the consequent confusion which he
manifested in the presence of the pious heathen, was exalted by
the compassionate grace of God to the position of His own
friend, so that even the heathen king, who seems to have been
in the right in this instance, was compelled to bend before him
and to seek the removal of the divine punishment, which had
CHAP. XXI. 1-7. 243
fallen upon him and his house, through the medium of his inter-
cession. In this way God proved to the Philistine king, on the one
hand, that He suffers no harm to befall His prophets (Ps. cv. 15),
and to Abraham, on the other, that He can maintain His cove-
nant and secure the realization of His promise against all oppo-
sition from the sinful desires of earthly potentates. It was in this
respect that the event possessed a typical significance in relation
to the future attitude of Israel towards surrounding nations.
BIRTH OF ISAAC. EXPULSION OF ISHMAEL. ABIMELECH's
TREATY WITH ABRAHAM. — CHAP. XXI.
Vers. 1-7. Birth of Isaac. — Jehovah did for Sarah what
God had promised in chap. xvii. 6 (cf . xviii. 14) : she conceived,
and at the time appointed bore a son to Abraham, when he was
100 years old. Abraham gave it the name of Jizchak (or Isaac),
and circumcised it on the eighth day. The name for the pro-
mised son had been selected by God, in connection with Abra-
ham's laughing (chap. xvii. 17 and 19), to indicate the nature
of his birth and existence. For as his laughing sprang from
the contrast between the idea and the reality ; so through a
miracle of grace the birth of Isaac gave effect to this contrast
between the promise of God and the pledge of its fulfilment on
the one hand, and the incapacity of Abraham for begetting
children, and of Sarah for bearing them, on the other; and
through this name, Isaac was designated as the fruit of omni-
potent grace working against and above the forces of nature.
Sarah also, who had previously laughed with unbelief at the
divine promise (xviii. 12), found a reason in the now accom-
plished birth of the promised son for laughing with joyous
amazement ; so that she exclaimed, with evident allusion to his
name, u A laughing hath God prepared for me; every one xvho
hears it will laugh to me " {i.e. will rejoice with me, in amaze-
ment at the blessing of God which has come upon me even in
my old age), and gave a fitting expression to the joy of her
heart, in this inspired tristich (ver. 7) : " Wlw ivould have said
unto Abraham: Sarah is giving suck; for I have born a son to
his old age." 7?0 is the poetic word for "O^, and *!? before the
perfect has the sense of — whoever has said, which we should ex-
press as a subjunctive ; cf . 2 Kings xx. 9 ; Ps. xi. 3, ej
2 Mas
244 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Vers. 8-21. Expulsion of Ishmael. — The weaning of the
child, which was celebrated with a feast, furnished the outward
occasion for this. Sarah saw Ishmael mocking, making ridicule
on the occasion. " Isaac, the object of holy laughter, was made
the butt of unholy wit or profane sport. He did not laugh (pro),
but he made fun (pTOD). The little helpless Isaac a father of
nations ! Unbelief, envy, pride of carnal superiority, were the
causes of his conduct. Because he did not understand the sen-
timent, ' Is anything too wonderful for the Lord ? ' it seemed to
him absurd to link so great a thing to one so small" (Hengsten-
berg). Paul calls this the persecution of him that was after the
Spirit by him that was begotten after the flesh (Gal. iv. 29), and
discerns in this a prediction of the persecution, which the Church
of those who are born after the spirit of faith endures from those
who are in bondage to the righteousness of the law. — Ver. 9.
Sarah therefore asked that the maid and her son might be sent
away, saying, the latter " shall not be heir with Isaac." The de-
mand, which apparently proceeded from maternal jealousy, dis-
pleased Abraham greatly " because of his son," — partly because in
Ishmael he loved his own flesh and blood, and partly on account of
the promise received for him (chap. xvii. 18 and 20). But God
(Elohim, since there is no appearance mentioned, but the divine
will was made known to him inwardly) commanded him to com-
ply with Sarah's demand : "for in Isaac shall seed (posterity) be
called to thee." This expression cannot mean " thy descendants
will call themselves after Isaac," for in that case, at all events,
*J3j"lT would be used ; nor " in (through) Isaac shall seed be called
into existence to thee," for tnp does not mean to call into exist-
ence ; but, " in the person of Isaac shall there be posterity to
thee, which shall pass as such," for X"jpJ includes existence and
the recognition of existence. Though the noun is not defined by
any article, the seed intended must be that to which all the pro
mises of God referred, and with which God would establish His
covenant (chap. xvii. 21, cf. Kom. ix. 7, 8 ; Heb. xi. 18). To
make the dismissal of Ishmael easier to the paternal heart, God
repeated to Abraham (ver. 13) the promise already given him
with regard to this son (chap. xvii. 20). — Vers. 14 sqq. The next
morning Abraham sent Hagar away with Ishmael. The words,
" he took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar, putting
it (Dt;' participle, not perfect) upon her shoulder, and the boy, and
CHAP. XXI. 8-21. 245
sent her away" do not state that Abraham gave her Ishmael also
to carry. For WI1W does not depend upon SK> and |FW because
of the copula 1, but upon 11$\} the leading verb of the sentence,
although it is separated from it by the parenthesis " putting it
upon her shoulder." It does not follow from these words, there-
fore, that Ishmael is represented as a little child. Nor is this
implied in the statement which follows, that Hagar, when wan-
dering about in the desert, " cast the boy under one of the shrubs,"
because the water in the bottle was gone. For "?«£ like ">W does
not mean an infant, but a boy, and also a young man (iv. 23) ; —
Ishmael must have been 15 or 16 years old, as he was 14 before
Isaac was born (cf. ver. 5, and xvi. 16) ; — and T/p'1?, " to throw,"
signifies that she suddenly left hold of the boy, when he fell ex-
hausted from thirst, just as in Matt. xv. 30 plirreiv is used for
laying hastily down. Though despairing of his life, the mother
took care that at least he should breathe out his life in the
shade, and she sat over against him weeping, "in the distance as
archers," i.e. according to a concise simile very common in He-
brew, as far off as archers are accustomed to place the target.
Her maternal love could not bear to see him die, and yet she
would not lose sight of him. — Vers. 17 sqq. Then God heard the
voice (the weeping and crying) of the boy, and the angel of God
called to Hagar from heaven, " What aileth thee, Hagar ? Fear
not, for God hath heard the voice of the boy, where he is" (ntPtfa
for "$?K Crip»3? 2 Sam. xv. 21), i.e. in his helpless condition :
" arise, lift up the lad," etc. It was Elohim, not Jehovah, who
heard the voice of the boy, and appeared as the angel of Elohim,
not of Jehovah (as in chap. xvi. 7), because, when Ishmael and
Hagar had been dismissed from Abraham's house, they were
removed from the superintendence and care of the covenant
God to the guidance and providence of God the ruler of all
nations. God then opened her eyes, and she saw what she had
not seen before, a well of water, from which she filled the bottle
and gave her son to drink. — Ver. 20. Having been miraculously
saved from perishing by the angel of God, Ishmael grew up
under the protection of God, settled in the wilderness of Paran,
and "became as he grew up an archer." Although preceded by
<W, the nnn is not tautological ; and there is no reason for attri-
buting to it the meaning of " archer," in which sense 33^ alone
occurs in the one passage Gen. xlix. 23. The desert of Paran
24G THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
is the present large desert of et-Tih, which stretches along the
southern border of Canaan, from the western fringe of the
Arabah, towards the east to the desert of Shnr (Jifa?'), on the
frontier of Egypt, and extends southwards to the promontories
of the mountains of Horeb (vid. Num. x. 12). On the northern
edge of this desert was Beersheba (proleptically so called in ver.
14), to which Abraham had removed from Gerar; so that in all
probability Hagar and Ishmael were sent away from his abode
there, and wandered about in the surrounding desert, till Hagar
was afraid that they should perish with thirst. Lastly, in pre-
paration for chap. xxv. 12-18, it is mentioned in ver. 21 that
Ishmael married a wife out of Egypt.
Vers. 22-34. Abimelech's Treaty with Abraham. —
Through the divine blessing which visibly attended Abraham,
the Philistine king Abimelecli was induced to secure for himself
and his descendants the friendship of a man so blessed ; and for
that purpose he went to Beersheba, with his captain Phicol, to
conclude a treaty with him. Abraham was perfectly ready to
agree to this ; but first of all he complained to him about a well
which Abimelech's men had stolen, i.e. had unjustly app
priated to themselves. Abimelecli replied that this act or
violence had never been made known to him till that day, and
as a matter of course commanded the well to be returned.
After the settlement of this dispute the treaty was concluded,
and Abraham presented the king with sheep and oxen, as a
material pledge that he would reciprocate the kindness shown,
and live in friendship with the king and his descendants. Out
of this present he selected seven lambs and set them by them-
selves ; and when Abimelecli inquired what they were, he told
him to take them from his hand, that they might be to him
(Abraham) for a witness that he had digged the well. It was
not to redeem the well, but to secure the well as his property
against any fresh claims on the part of the Philistines, that the
presenl was given; and by the acceptance of it, Abraham's
right of possession was practically and solemnly acknowledged. —
Ver. 31. From this circumstance, the place where it occurred
received the name V2V ")X3? i.e. seven-well, "because there they
sware both of them." It does not follow from this note, that
the writer interpreted the name "oath-well,"' and took JOB* in the
CHAP. XXI. 22-34. 247
sense of HJQB'. The idea is rather the following : the place re-
ceived its name from the seven lambs, by which Abraham
secu/ed to himself possession of the well, because the treaty was
sworn to on the basis of the agreement confirmed by the seven
lambs. There is no mention of sacrifice, however, in connection
with the treaty (see chap. xxvi. 33). J>?£0 to swear, lit. to
seven one's self, not because in the oath the divine number 3 is
combined with the world-number 4, but because, from the
sacredness of the number 7, the real origin and ground of
which are to be sought in the number 7 of the work of creation,
seven things were generally chosen to give validity to an oath,
as was the case, according to Herodotus (3, 8), with the Arabians
among others. Beersheba was in the Wady es-Seba, the broad
channel of a winter-torrent, 12 hours' journey to the south of
Hebron on the road to Egypt and the Dead Sea, where there
are still stones to be found, the relics of an ancient town, and
two deep wells with excellent water, called Bir es Seba, i.e.
seven-well (not lion-well, as the Bedouins erroneously interpret
it) : cf. Robinson's Pal. i. pp. 300 sqq. — Ver. 33. Here Abraham
planted a tamarisk and called upon the name of the Lord (yid.
lap. iv. 26), the everlasting God. Jehovah is called the ever-
lasting God, as the eternally true, with respect to the eternal
covenant, which He established with Abraham (chap. xvii. 7).
The planting of this long-lived tree, with its hard wood, and its
long, narrow, thickly clustered, evergreen leaves, was to be a
type of the ever-enduring grace of the faithful covenant God. —
Ver. 34. Abraham sojourned a long time there in the Philistines'
land. There Isaac was probably born, and grew up to be a
young man (xxii. 6), capable of carrying the wood for a sacri-
fice: cf. xxii. 19. The expression "in the land of the Philis-
tines " appears to be at variance with ver. 32, where Abimelech
and Phicol are said to have returned to the land of the Philistines.
But the discrepancy is easily reconciled, on the supposition that
at that time the land of the Philistines had no fixed boundary,
at all events, towards the desert. Beersheba did not belong to
Gerar, the kingdom of Abimelech in the stricter sense ; but the
Philistines extended their wanderings so far, and claimed the
district as their own, as is evident from the fact that Abime-
lech's people had taken the well from Abraham. On the other
hand, Abraham with his numerous flocks would not confine him-
248 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES
self to the Wady es Seba, but must have sought for pasture-
ground in the whole surrounding country ; and as Abimelech
had given him full permission to dwell in his land (xx. 15), he
would still, as heretofore, frequently come as far as Gerar, so
that his dwelling at Beersheba (xxii. 19) might be correctly
described as sojourning (nomadizing) in the land of the Philis-
tines.
OFFERING UP OF ISAAC UPON MORIAH. FAMILY OF NAHOR. —
CHAP. XXII.
Vers. 1-19. Offering up of Isaac. — For many years had
Abraham waited for the promised seed, in which the divine
promise was to be fulfilled. At length the Lord had given him
the desired heir of his body by his wife Sarah, and directed him
to send away the son of the maid. And now that this son had
grown into a young man, the word of God came to Abraham to
offer up this very son, who had been given to him as the heir of
the promise, for a burnt-offering, upon one of the mountains
which should be shown him. This word did not come from his
own heart, — was not a thought suggested by the sight of the
human sacrifices of the Canaanites, that he would offer a similar
sacrifice to his God ; nor did it originate with the tempter to
evil. The word came from Ila-Eloldm, the personal, true God,
who tried him (i"13?), i.e. demanded the sacrifice of the only, be-
loved son, as a proof and attestation of his faith. The issue
shows, that God did not desire the sacrifice of Isaac by slaying
and burning him upon the altar, but his complete surrender,
and a willingness to offer him up to God even by death. Never-
theless the divine command was given in such a form, that
Abraham could not understand it in any other way than as re-
quiring an outward burnt-offering, because there was no other
way in which Abraham could accomplish the complete surrender
of isaac, than by an actual preparation for really offering the
desired sacrifice. This constituted the trial, which necessarily
I irod need a severe internal conflict in his mind. Ratio humana
simpliciter concluderet ant mentiri promissionem aut mandatwm
non esse Dei sed Diaboli; est enim contradictio manifesta. Si enim
ilrhrt ,<■<■/'<// Isaac, irrita est promissio ; sin rata est promissio,im-
possibile est hue esse Dei mandatum (Luther). But Abraham
CHAP. XXII. 1-19. 249
brought his reason into captivity to the obedience of faith. He
did not question the truth of the word of God, which had been
addressed to him in a mode that was to .his mind perfectly in-
fallible (not in a vision of the night, however, of which there is
not a syllable in the text), but he stood firm in his faith, " ac-
counting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead"
Ileb. xi. 19). Without taking counsel with flesh and blood,
Abraham started early in the morning (vers. 3, 4), with his son
Isaac and two servants, to obey the divine command ; and on the
third day (for the distance from Beersheba to Jerusalem is about
20^ hours; Rob. Pal. iii. App. 66, 67) he saw in the distance the
place mentioned by God, the land of Moriah, i.e. the moun-
tainous country round about Jerusalem. The name ^P, com-
posed of the Hophal partic. of HiO and the divine name fl^ an
abbreviation of nirp (lit. " the shown of Jehovah," equivalent to
the manifestation of Jehovah), is no doubt used proleptically in
ver. 2, and given to the mountain upon which the sacrifice was
to be made, with direct reference to this event and the ap-
pearance of Jehovah to Abraham there. This is confirmed by
ver. 14, where the name is connected with the event, and ex-
plained in the fuller expression Jehovah-jireh. On the ground
of this passage the mountain upon which Solomon built the
temple is called nnisn with reference to the appearance of the
angel of the Lord to David on that mountain at the threshing-
floor of Araunah (2 Sam. xxiv. 16, 17), the old name being re-
vived by this appearance.
Ver. 5. When in sight of the distant mountain, Abraham left
the servants behind with the ass, that he might perform the last
and hardest part of the journey alone with Isaac, and, as he said
to the servants, " worship yonder and then return." The servants
were not to see what would take place there ; for they could not
understand this " worship," and the issue even to him, notwith-
standing his saying " we will come again to you," was still in-
volved in the deepest obscurity. This last part of the journey
is circumstantially described in vers. 6-8, to show how strong a
conflict every step produced in the paternal heart of the patri-
arch. They go both together, he with the fire and the knife in
his hand, and his son with the wood for the sacrifice upon his
shoulder. Isaac asks his father, where is the lamb for the burnt-
offering ; and the father replies, not " Thou wilt be it, my son,"
PENT. — VOL. I. R
250 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
but " God (Elohim without the article — God as the all-pervading
supreme power) will provide it;" for he will not and cannot
yet communicate the divine command to his son. Non vult
filium macerare longa cruce et tentatione (Luther). — Vers. 9, 10.
Having arrived at the appointed place, Abraham built an altar,
arranged the wood upon it, bound his son and laid him upon the
wood of the altar, and then stretched out his hand and took the
knife to slay his son. — Vers. 11 sqq. In this eventful moment,
when Isaac lay bound like a lamb upon the altar, about to receive
the fatal stroke, the angel of the Lord called down from heaven
to Abraham to stop, and do his son no harm. For the Lord now
knew that Abraham was CITPK N?/1 God-fearing, and that his obe-
dience of faith did extend even to the sacrifice of his own beloved
son. The sacrifice was already accomplished in his heart, and
he had fully satisfied the requirements of God. He was not to
slay his son: therefore God prevented the outward fulfilment of
the sacrifice by an immediate interposition, and showed him a
ram, which he saw, probably being led to look round through a
rustling behind him, with its horns fast in a thicket (in? adv.
behind, in the background) ; and as an offering provided by God
Himself, he sacrificed it instead of his son. — Ver. 14. From this
interposition of God, Abraham called the place Jehovah-jur/i,
" Jehovah sees," i.e. according to ver. 8, provides, providet ; so
that (ItJ'Sj as in chap. xiii. 16, is equivalent to i? ?J?, x. 9) men are
still accustomed to say, " On the mountain where Jehovah appears"
(n^7'-)' *"rom wmc^ tne name Moriah arose. The rendering " on
the mount of Jehovah it is provided" is not allowable, for the
Niphal of the verb does not mean provideri, but " appear."
Moreover, in this case the medium of God's seeing or interposi-
tion was His appearing. — Vers. 15-19. After Abraham had offered
the ram, the angel of the Lord called to him a second time from
heaven, and with a solemn oath renewed the former promises, as
a reward for this proof of his obedience of faith (cf. xii. 2, 3).
To confirm their unchangeableness, Jehovah swore by Himself
(cf. Heb. vi. 13 sqq.), a thing which never occurs again in His
intercourse with the patriarchs ; so that subsequently not only do
we find repeated references to this oath (chap. xxiv. 7, xxvi. 3,
1. 24; Ex. xiii. 5, 11, xxxiii. 1, etc.), but, as Luther observes, all
that is said in Ps. Ixxxix. 36, cxxxii. 11, ex. 4 respecting the oath
given to David, is founded upon this. Sicut enim promissio
CHAP. XXII. 1-19. 251
seminis Abrahce derivata est in semen Davidis, ita Scriptura S.jus-
jurandum Abrahce datum in personam Davidis transfert. For in
the promise upon which these psalms are based nothing is said
about an oath (ef. 2 Sam. vii. ; 1 Chron. xvii.). The declara-
tion on oath is still further confirmed by the addition of ftirp DXJ
" edict (Ausspruch) of Jehovah" which, frequently as it occurs
in the prophets, is met with in the Pentateuch only in Num. xiv.
28, and (without Jehovah) in the oracles of Balaam, Num. xxiv.
3, 15, 16. As the promise was intensified in form, so was it also
in substance. To express the innumerable multiplication of the
seed in the strongest possible way, a comparison with the sand
of the sea-shore is added to the previous simile of the stars. And
this seed is also promised the possession of the gate of its ene-
mies, i.e. the conquest of the enemy and the capture of his cities
(cf. xxiv. 60).
This glorious result of the test so victoriously stood by Abra-
ham, not only sustains the historical character of the event itself,
but shows in the clearest manner that the trial was necessary to
the patriarch's life of faith, and of fundamental importance to
his position in relation to the history of salvation. The question,
whether the true God could demand a human sacrifice, was
settled by the fact that God Himself prevented the completion
of the sacrifice ; and the difficulty, that at any rate God contra-
dicted Himself, if He first of all demanded a sacrifice and then
prevented it from being offered, is met by the significant inter-
change of the names of God, since God, who commanded Abra-
ham to offer up Isaac, is called Ha-Elohim, whilst the actual
completion of the sacrifice is prevented by " the angel of Jeho-
vah," who is identical with Jehovah Himself. The sacrifice of
the heir, who had been both promised and bestowed, was de-
manded neither by Jehovah, the God of salvation or covenant
God, who had given Abraham this only son as the heir of the
promise, nor by Elohim, God as creator, who has the power
to give life and take it away, but by Ha-Elohim, the true
God, whom Abraham had acknowledged and adored as his per-
sonal God, and with whom he had entered into a personal rela-
tion. Coming from the true God whom Abraham served, the
demand could have no other object than to purify and sanctify
the feelings of the patriarch's heart towards his son and towards
his God, in accordance with the great purpose of his call. It
252 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
was designed to purify his love to the son of his body from all
the dross of carnal self-love and natural selfishness which might
still adhere to it, and so to transform it into love to God, from
whom he had received him, that he should no longer love the
beloved son as his flesh and blood, but simply and solely as a
gift of grace, as belonging to his God, — a trust committed to
him, which he should be ready at any moment to give back to
God. As he had left his country, kindred, and father's house
at the call of God (xii. 1), so was he in his walk with God
cheerfully to offer up even his only son, the object of all his
longing, the hope of his life, the joy of his old age. And still
more than this, not only did he possess and love in Isaac the heir
of his possessions (xv. 2), but it was upon him that all the promises
of God rested : in Isaac should his seed be called (xxi. 12). By
the demand that he should sacrifice to God this only son of his
wife Sarah, in whom his seed was to grow into a multitude of
nations (xvii. 4, 6, 16), the divine promise itself seemed to be
cancelled, and the fulfilment not only of the desires of his heart,
but also of the repeated promises of his God, to be frustrated.
And by this demand his faith was to be perfected into uncondi-
tional trust in God, into the firm assurance that God could even
raise him up from the dead. — But this trial was not only one of
significance to Abraham, by perfecting him, through the conquest
of flesh and blood, to be the father of the faithful, the progenitor
of the Church of God ; Isaac also was to be prepared and sancti-
fied by it for his vocation in connection with the history of
salvation. In permitting himself to be bound and laid upon the
altar without resistance, he gave up his natural life to death, to
rise to a new life through the grace of God. On the altar he
was sanctified to God, dedicated as the first beginning of the
holy Church of God, and thus " the dedication of the first-born,
which was afterwards enjoined in the law, was perfectly fulfilled
in him." If therefore the divine command exhibits in the most
impressive way the earnestness of the demand of God upon His
people to sacrifice all to Him, not excepting the dearest of their
possessions (cf. Matt. x. 37, and Luke xiv. 26) ; the issue of the
trial teaches that the true God does not demand a literal human
sacrifice from His worshippers, but the spiritual sacrifice of an
unconditional denial of the natural life, even to submission to
death itself. By the sacrifice of a ram as a burnt-offering in the
CHAP. XXII. 20-24 253
place of his son, under divine direction, not only was animal
sacrifice substituted for human, and sanctioned as an acceptable
symbol of spiritual self-sacrifice, but the offering of human
sacrifices by the heathen was condemned and rejected as an un-
godly i0e\o6pri<TK6La. And this was done by Jehovah, the God
of salvation, who prevented the outward completion of the sacri-
fice. By this the event acquires prophetic importance for the
Church of the Lord, to which the place of sacrifice points with
peculiar clearness, viz. Mount Moriah, upon which under the legal
economy all the typical sacrifices were offered to Jehovah ; upon
which also, in the fulness of time, God the Father gave up His
only-begotten Son as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the
whole world, that by this one true sacrifice the shadows of the
typical sacrifices might be rendered both real and true. If
therefore the appointment of Moriah as the scene of the sacrifice
of Isaac, and the offering of a ram in his stead, were primarilv
only typical in relation to the significance and intent of the Old
Testament institution of sacrifice ; this type already pointed to
the antitype to appear in the future, when the eternal love of
the heavenly Father would perform what it had demanded of
Abraham ; that is to say, when God would not spare His only
Son, but give Him up to the real death, which Isaac suffered
only in spirit, that we also might die with Christ spiritually, and
rise with Him to everlasting life (Rom. viii. 32, vi. 5, etc.).
Vers. 20-24. Descendants of Nahor. — With the sacri-
fice of Isaac the test of Abraham's faith was now complete, and
the purpose of his divine calling answered : the history of his
life, therefore, now hastens to its termination. But first of all
there is introduced quite appropriately an account of the family
of his brother Nahor, which is so far in place immediately after
the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, that it prepares the way for
the history of the marriage of the heir of the promise. The con-
nection is pointed out in ver. 20, as compared with chap. xi. 29,
in the expression, " she also." Nahor, like Ishmael and Jacob,
had twelve sons, eight by his wife Milcah and four by his con-
cubine ; whereas Jacob had his by two wives and two maids, and
Ishmael apparently all by one wife. This difference with regard
to the mothers proves that the agreement as to the number twelve
rests upon a good historical tradition, and is no product of a later
254 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
myth, which traced to Nahor the same number of tribes as to
Ishmael and Jacob. For it is a perfectly groundless assertion
or assumption, that Nahor's twelve sons were the fathers of as
many tribes. There are only a few names, of which it is pro-
bable that their bearers were the founders of tribes of the same
name. On Uz, see chap. x. 23. Buz is mentioned in Jer. xxv.
23 along Avith Dedan and Tema as an Arabian tribe ; and
Elihu was a Buzite of the family of Ram (Job xxxii. 2).
Kemuel, the father of Aram, was not the founder of the Ara-
mseans, but the forefather of the family of Ram, to which the
Buzite Elihu belonged, — Aram being written for Ram, like
Arammim in 2 Kings viii. 29 for Rammim in 2 Chron. xxii. 5.
Chesed again was not the father of the Chasdim (Chaldeans),
for they were older than Chesed ; at the most he was only
the founder of one branch of the Chasdim, possibly those who
stole Job's camels (Knobel; vid. Job i. 17). Of the remaining
names, Bethuel was not the founder of a tribe, but the father of
Laban and Rebekah (chap. xxv. 20). The others are never met
with again, with the exception of Maachah, from whom pro-
bably the Maachites (Dent. iii. 14 ; Josh. xii. 5) in the land of
Maacah, a small Arabian kingdom in the time of David (2 Sam.
x. 6, 8 ; 1 Chron. xix. 6'), derived their origin and name ; though
Maachah frequently occurs as the name of a person (1 Kings
ii. 39 ; 1 Chron. xi. 43, xxvii. 16).
DEATH OF SARAH ; AND PURCHASE OF THE CAVE AT
MACIIPELAH. — CHAP. XXIII.
Vers. 1, 2. Sarah is the only woman whose age is men-
tioned in the Scriptures, because as the mother of the pro-
mised seed she became the mother of all believers (1 Pet. iii. 6).
She died at the age of 127, thirty-seven years after the birth of
Isaac, at Hebron, or rather in the grove of Mamre near that
city (xiii. 18), whither Abraham had once more returned after a
lengthened stay at Beersheba (xxii. 19). The name Kirjath
Arba, i.e. the city of Arba, which Hebron bears here and also
in chap. xxxv. 27, and other passages, and which it still bore at
the time of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites (Josh. xiv.
15), was not the original name of the city, but was first given to
it by Arba the Anakite and his family, who had not yet arrived
CHAP. XXIII. 3-16. • 255
there in the time of the patriarchs. It was probably given by
them when they took possession of the city, and remained until
the Israelites captured it and restored the original name. The
place still exists, as a small town on the road from Jerusalem to
Beersheba, in a valley surrounded by several mountains, and is
called by the Arabs, with allusion to Abraham's stay there, el
Kltalil, i.e. the friend (of God), which is the title given to
Abraham by the Mohammedans. The clause " in the la?id of
Canaan" denotes, that not only did Sarah die in the land
of promise, but Abraham as a foreigner acquired a burial-
place by purchase there. " And Abraham came " (not from
Beersheba, but from the field where he may have been with the
flocks), "to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her,'" i.e. to arrange
for the customary mourning ceremony.
Vers. 3-16. He then went to the Hittites, the lords and
possessors of the city and its vicinity at that time, to procure
from them " a possession of a burying-place." The negotiations
were carried on in the most formal style, in a public assembly
" of the people of the land," i.e. of natives (ver. 7), in the gate
of the city (ver. 10). As a foreigner and sojourner, Abraham
presented his request in the most courteous manner to all the
citizens ( " all that went in at the gate," vers. 10, 18 ; a phrase
interchangeable with "all that went out at the gate," chap,
xxxiv. 24, and those who "go out and in," Jer. xvii. 19). The
citizens with the greatest readiness and respect offered "the
prince of God," i.e. the man exalted by God to the rank of a
prince, " the choice " (""^fy i.e. the most select) of their graves
for his use (ver. 6). But Abraham asked them to request
Ephron, who, to judge from the expression " his city " in ver.
10, was then ruler of the city, to give him for a possession the
cave of Machpelah, at the end of his field, of which he was the
owner, " for full silver," i.e. for its full worth. Ephron there-
upon offered to make him a present of both field and cave.
This was a turn in the affair which is still customary in the
East ; the design, so far as it is seriously meant at all, being
either to obtain a present in return which will abundantly
compensate for the value of the gift, or, what is still more fre-
quently the case, to preclude any abatement in the price to be
asked. The same design is evident in the peculiar form in
which Ephron stated the price, in reply to Abraham's repeated
256 the first book OF MOSES.
declaration that he was determined to buy the piece of land :
"a piece of land of 400 shekels of silver, what is that between
me and thee" (ver. 15) ? Abraham understood it so (JH?B* ver.
16), and weighed him the price demanded. The shekel of
silver " current with the merchant," i.e. the shekel which passed
in trade as of standard weight, was 274 Parisian grains, so that
the price of the piece of land was £52, 10s.; a very considerable
amount for that time.
Vers. 17-20. "Thus arose (Di£l) the field . . . to Abraham
for a possession ;" i.e. it was conveyed to hiin in all due legal
form. The expression "the field of Ephron which is at Mach-
pelah " may be explained, according to ver. 9, from the fact that
the cave of Machpelah was at the end of the field ; the field,
therefore, belonged to it. In ver. 19 the shorter form, " cave of
Machpelah," occurs ; and in ver. 20 the field is distinguished
from the cave. The name Machpelah is translated by the
LXX. as a common noun, to cnrt]\aiov to hnfkovv, from
n??r"? doubling; but it had evidently grown into a proper
name, since it is used not only of the cave, but of the adjoining
field also (chap. xlix. 30, 1. 13), though it undoubtedly origi-
nated in the form of the cave. The cave was before, i.e. pro-
bably to the east of, the grove of Mamre, which was in the
district of Hebron. This description cannot be reconciled with
the tradition, which identifies Mamre and the cave with Ramct
el Khalil, where the strong foundation-walls of an ancient
heathen temple (according to Rosenmuller's conjecture, an Idu-
msean one) are still pointed out as Abraham's house, and where
a very old terebinth stood in the early Christian times; for this
is an hour's journey to the north of modern Hebron, and even
the ancient Hebron cannot have stretched so far over the
mountains which separate the modern city from Rameh, but
must also, according to chap, xxxvii. 14, have been situated
in the valley (see Robinson's later Biblical Researches, pp.
365 sqq,). There is far greater probability in the Moham-
medan tradition, that the Harem, built of colossal blocks
with grooved edges, which stands on the western slope of the
Geabireh mountain, in the north-western portion of the present
town, contains hidden within it the cave of Machpelah with
the tomb of the patriarchs (cf. Robinsoit, Pal. ii. 435 sqq.); and
Rosen, is induced to look for Mamre on the eastern slope of
CHAP. XXIV. 1-9. 257
the Rumeidi hill, near to the remarkable well Ain el Jedid. —
Ver. 20. The repetition of the statement, that the field with the
cave in it was conveyed to Abraham by the Hittites for a burial-
place, which gives the result of the negotiation that has been
described with, so to speak, legal accuracy, shows the great im-
portance of the event to the patriarch. The fact that Abraham
purchased a burying-place in strictly legal form as an hereditary
possession in the promised land, was a proof of his strong faith
in the promises of God and their eventual fulfilment. In this
grave Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, were buried ;
there Jacob buried Leah ; and there Jacob himself requested
that he might be buried, thus declaring his faith in the promises,
even in the hour of his death.
Isaac's marriage. — chap. xxiv.
Vers. 1-9. After the death of Sarah, Abraham -had still to
arrange for the marriage of Isaac. He was induced to provide
for this in a mode in harmony with the promise of God, quite
as much by his increasing age as by the blessing of God in
everything, which necessarily instilled the wish to transmit that
blessing to a distant posterity. He entrusted this commission to
his servant, " the eldest of his house," — i.e. his upper servant,
who had the management of all his house (according to general
opinion, to Eliezer, whom he had previously thought of as the
heir of his property, but who would now, like Abraham, be ex-
tremely old, as more than sixty years had passed since the occur-
rence related in chap. xv. 2), — and made him swear that he would
not take a wife for his son from the daughters of the Canaanites,
but would fetch one from his (Abraham's) native country, and
his kindred. Abraham made the servant take an oath in order
that his wishes might be inviolably fulfilled, even if he himself
should die in the interim. In swearing, the servant put his
hand under Abraham's hip. This custom, which is only men-
tioned here and in chap, xlvii. 29, the so-called bodily oath,
was no doubt connected with the significance of the hip as the
part from which the posterity issued (xlvi. 26), and the seat of
vital power ; but the early Jewish commentators supposed it to
be especially connected with the rite of circumcision. The oath
was by " Jehovah, God of heaven and earth," as the God who
258 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
rules in heaven and on earth, not by Eloliim ; for it had respect
not to an ordinary oath, but to a question of great importance in
relation to the kingdom of God. "Isaac was not regarded as
a merely pious candidate for matrimony, but as the heir of the
promise, who must therefore be kept from any alliance with the
race whose possessions were to come to his descendants, and which
was ripening for the judgment to be executed by those descend-
ants" (Ilengstcnherg, Dissertations i. 350). For this reason the rest
of the negotiation was all conducted in the name of Jehovah. —
Vers. 5 sqq. Before taking the oath, the servant asks whether,
in case no woman of their kindred would follow him to Canaan,
Isaac was to be conducted to the land of his fathers. But Abra-
ham rejected the proposal, because Jehovah took him from his
father's house, and had promised him the land of Canaan for a
possession. He also discharged the servant, if that should be the
case, from the oath which he had taken, in the assurance that
the Lord through His angel would bring a wife to his son from
thence.
Vers. 10-28. The servant then went, with ten camels and
things of every description belonging to his master, into Meso-
potamia to the city of Nahor, i.e. Haran, where Nahor dwelt
(xi. 31, and xii. 4). On his arrival there, he made the camels
kneel down, or rest, without the city by the well, "at the time of
evening, the time at which the women come out to draw tcater" and
at which, now as then, women and girls are in the habit of fetch-
ing the water required for the house (vid. Robinson's Pales-
tine ii. 3G8 sqq.). He then prayed to Jehovah, the God of
Abraham, " Let there come to meet me to-day" sc. the person de-
sired, the object of my mission. He then fixed upon a sign con-
nected with the custom of the country, by the occurrence of which
he might decide upon the maiden (1Jf3i] paella, used in the Pen-
tateuch for both sexes, except in Deut. xxii. 19, where n"nj?3 occurs)
whom Jehovah had indicated as the wife appointed for His ser-
vant Isaac. n*Oin (ver. 14) to set right, then to point out as
right; not merely to appoint. He had scarcely ended his prayer
when his request was granted. Rebekah did just what ho had
fixed upon as ;i token, not only giving him to drink, but offer-
ing to water his camels, and with youthful vivacity carrying
out her promise. Niebrthr met with similar kindness in those
regions (see also Robinson, Pal. ii. 351, etc.). The servant did
CHAP. XXIV. 29-54 259
not give himself blindly up to first impressions, however, but
tested the circumstances. — Ver. 21. " The man, icondering at
her, stood silent, to know whether Jehovah had made his journey
prosperous or not." nNPityp, from HNC> to be desert, inwardly
laid waste, i.e. confused. Others derive it from ns^ = ny^to
see; but in the Hithpael this verb signifies to look restlessly
about, which is not applicable here. — Vers. 22 sqq. After the
watering of the camels was over, the man took a golden nose-
ring of the weight of a beka, i.e. half a shekel (Ex. xxxviii. 2P\
and two golden armlets of 10 shekels weight, and (as we find
from vers. 30 and 47) placed these ornaments upon her, not as
a bridal gift, but in return for her kindness. He then asked
her about her family, and whether there was room in her
father's house for him and his attendants to pass the night
there ; and it was not till after Rebekah had told him that she
was the daughter of Bethuel, the nephew of Abraham, and had
given a most cheerful assent to his second question, that he felt
sure that this was the wife appointed by Jehovah for Isaac. He
then fell down and thanked Jehovah for His grace and truth,
whilst Rebekah in the meantime had hastened home to relate
all that had occurred to " her mother s house" i.e. to the female
portion of her family, "ipn the condescending love, riEN the
truth which God had displayed in the fulfilment of His promise,
and here especially manifested to him in bringing him to the
home of his master's relations.
Vers. 29-54. As soon as Laban her brother had seen the
splendid presents and heard her account, he hurried out to the
stranger at the well, to bring him to the house with his attend-
ants and animals, and to show to him the customary hospitality
of the East. The fact that Laban addressed him as the
blessed of Jehovah (ver. 31), may be explained from the
words of the servant, who had called his master's God Jehovah.
The servant discharged his commission before he partook of the
food set before him (the Kethibh {&"} in ver. 33 is the imperf.
Kal of DtJ^ = DIE') ; and commencing with his master's posses-
sions and family affairs, he described with the greatest minute-
ness his search for a wife, and the success which he had thus
far met with, and then (in ver. 49) pressed his suit thus :
" And now, if ye will show kindness and truth to my lord,
tell me; and if not, tell me ; that I may turn to the right hand or
200 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
to the left," sc. to seek in other families a wife for Isaac. — Ver.
50. Laban and Bethuel recognised in this the guidance of God,
and said, " From Jehovah (the God of Abraham) the thing pro-
ceeded; we cannot speak unto thee bad or good" i.e. cannot add a
word, cannot alter anything (Num. xxiv. 13 ; 2 Sam. xiii. 22).
That Rebekah's brother Laban should have taken part with her
father in deciding, was in accordance with the usual custom (cf.
xxxiv. 5, 11, 25, Judg. xxi. 22, 2 Sam. xiii. 22), which may
have arisen from the prevalence of polygamy, and the readiness
of the father to neglect the children (daughters) of the wife he
cared for least. — Ver. 52. After receiving their assent, the ser-
vant first of all offered thanks to Jehovah with the deepest
reverence ; he then gave the remaining presents to the bride,
and to her relations (brother and mother) ; and after everything
was finished, partook of the food provided.
Vers. 54-60. The next morning he desired at once to set off
on the journey home; but her brother and mother wished to
keep her with them "litSW is DH3J, " some days, or rather ten" but
when she was consulted, she decided to go, sc. without delay.
" Then they sent away Rebchah their sister (Laban being chiefly
considered, as the leading person in the affair) and her nurse "
(Deborah; Ch. xxxv. 8), with the parting wish that she might be-
come the mother of an exceedingly numerous and victorious pos-
terity. "Become thousands of myriads" is a hyperbolical expression
for an innumerable host of children. The second portion of the
blessing (ver. QOb) is almost verbatim the same as chap. xxii. 17,
but is hardly borrowed thence, as the thought does not contain
anything specifically connected with the history of salvation.
Vers. 61-67. When the caravan arrived in Canaan with
liebekah and her maidens, Isaac had just come from going to
the well Lahai-Roi (xvi. 14), as he was then living iu the south
country ; and he went towards evening (3"]V rn^S?, at the turn-
ing, coming on, of the evening, Deut. xxiii. 12) to the field " to
meditate." It is impossible to determine whether Isaac had been
to the well of Ilagar which called to mind the omnipresence of
God, and there, in accordance with his contemplative character,
had laid the question of his marriage before the Lord (JDelitesch),
or whether he had merely travelled thither to look after his
flocks and herds (Knobel). But the object of his going to the
field to meditate, w as undoubtedly to lay the question of his mar-
CHAP. XXV. 1-4. 261
riage before God in solitude, tyfo, meditari, is rendered " to
■pray " in the Chaldee, and by Luther and others, with substantial
correctness. The caravan arrived at the time ; and Rebekah, as
soon as she saw the man in the field coming to meet them, sprang
(733 signifying a hasty descent, 2 Kings v. 21) from the camel
to receive him, according to Oriental custom, in the most respect-
ful manner. She then inquired the name of the man ; and as
soon as she heard that it was Isaac, she enveloped herself in her
veil, as became a bride when meeting the bridegroom. T^',
depi.arpov, the cloak-like veil of Arabia (see my Archdologie,
§ 103, 5). The servant then related to Isaac the result of his
journey ; and Isaac conducted the maiden, who had been brought
to him by God, into the tent of Sarah his mother, and she be-
came his wife, and he loved her, and was consoled after his
mother, i.e. for his mother's death. ■"wNn with n local, in the
construct state, as in chap. xx. 1, xxviii. 2, etc. ; and in addition to
that, with the article prefixed (cf. Ges. Gram. § 110, 2bc).
ABRAHAMS MARRIAGE TO KETURAH — HIS DEATH AND
BURIAL.— CHAP. XXV.
Vers. 1-4. Abraham's marriage to Keturah is gene-
rally supposed to have taken place after Sarah's death, and his
power to beget six sons at so advanced an age is attributed to
the fact, that the Almighty had endowed him with new vital
and reproductive energy for begetting the son of the promise.
But there is no firm ground for this assumption ; as it is not
stated anywhere, that Abraham did not take Keturah as his wife
till after Sarah's death. It is merely an inference drawn from
the fact, that it is not mentioned till afterwards ; and it is taken
for granted that the history is written in strictly chronological
order. But this supposition is precarious, and is not in harmony
with the statement, that Abraham sent away the sons of the
concubines with gifts during his own lifetime ; for in the case
supposed, the youngest of Keturah' s sons would not have been
more than twenty-five or thirty years old at Abraham's death ;
and in those days, when marriages were not generally contracted
before the fortieth year, this seems too young for them to have
been sent away from their father's house. This difficulty, how-
ever, is not decisive. Nor does the fact that Keturah is called
262 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
a concubine in vcr. 6, and 1 Chron. i. 32, necessarily show that
she was cotemporaiy with Sarah, but may be explained on the
ground that Abraham did not place her on the same footing as
Sarah, his sole wife, the mother of the promised seed. Of the
sons and grandsons of Keturah, who are mentioned in 1 Chron. i.
32 as well as here, a few of the names may still be found among
the Arabian tribes, but in most instances the attempt to trace
them is very questionable. This remark applies to the identifi-
cation of Zlmran with Zafipdfi (Ptol. vi. 7, 5), the royal city of
the K.Lvcu8otco\7riTai to the west of Mecca, on the Red Sea ; of
Jokshan with the Kaacravlrat, on the Red Sea (Ptol. vi. 7, 6),
or with the Ilimyaritish tribe of Jalcish in Southern Arabia ; of
Ishbak with the name Shobek, a place in the Edomitish country
first mentioned by Ahulfeda ; of Shuah with the tribe Syayhe
to the east of Aila, or with Szyhhan in Northern Edom (Burck-
hardt, Syr. 692, 693, and 945), although the epithet the Shuhite,
applied to Bildad, points to a place in Northern Idumoea. There
is more plausibility in the comparison of Medan and Mldlan
with MoSiava on the eastern coast of the Elanitic Gulf, and
MaSiava, a tract to the north of this (Ptol. vi. 7, 2, 27 ; called
by Arabian geographers Madyan, a city five days' journey to
the south of Aila). The relationship of these two tribes will
explain the fact, that the Midianim, chap, xxxvii. 28, are called
Medanim in ver. 36. — Ver. 3. Of the sons of Jokshan, Sheba
was probably connected with the Saboeans, who are associated
in Job vi. 19 with Tema, are mentioned in Job i. 15 as having
stolen Job's oxen and asses, and, according to Strabo (xvi. 779),
were neighbours of the Nabatasans in the vicinity of Syria.
Dedan was probably the trading people mentioned in Jer. xxv.
23 along with Tema and Bus (Isa. xxi. 13 ; Jer. xlix. 8), in
the neighbourhood of Edom (Ezek. xxv. 13), with whom the
tribe of Banu Dudan, in Hejas, has been compared. On their
relation to the Cushites of the same name, vid. chap. x. 7 and
28. — Of the sons of Dedan, the Asslturim have been associated
with the warlike tribe of the Asir to the south of Hejas, the
Letushim with the Banu Letts in Hejas, and the Leummim with
the tribe of the Banu Lam, which extended even to Babylon
and Mesopotamia. Of the descendants of Midian, Ephah is
mentioned in Isa. lx. 6, in connection with Midian, as a people
trading in gold and incense. Epher has been compared with the
CHAP. XXV. 5-11. 263
Banu Gifar in Hejas ; Ilanoch, with the place called Ilanaki/e,
three days' journey to the north of Medinah ; Abidali and El-
daah, with the tribes of Abide and Vadaa in the neighbourhood
of Asir. But all this is very uncertain.
Vers. 5-11. Before his death, Abraham made a final dispo-
sition of his property. Isaac, the only son of his marriage with
Sarah, received all his possessions. The sons of the concubines
(Hagar and Keturah) were sent away with presents from their
father's house into the east country, i.e. Arabia in the widest
sense, to the east and south-east of Palestine. — Vers. 7, 8.
Abraham died at the good old age of 175, and was " gathered to
his people." This expression, which is synonymous with " going
to his fathers" (xv. 15), or "being gathered to his fathers"
(Judg. ii. 10), but is constantly distinguished from departing
this life and being buried, denotes the reunion in Sheol with
friends who have gone before, and therefore presupposes faith
in the personal continuance of a man after death, as a presenti-
ment which the promises of God had exalted in the case of the
patriarchs into a firm assurance of faith (Heb. xi. 13). — Vers.
9, 10. The burial of the patriarch in the cave of Machpelah
was attended to by Isaac and Ishmael ; since the latter, although
excluded from the blessings of the covenant, was acknowledged
by God as the son of Abraham by a distinct blessing (xvii. 20),
and was thus elevated above the sons of Keturah. — Ver. 11.
After Abraham's death the blessing was transferred to Isaac,
who took up his abode by Hagar's well, because he had already
been there, and had dwelt in the south country (xxiv. 62).
The blessing of Isaac is traced to Elohim, not to Jehovah ;
because it referred neither exclusively nor pre-eminently to the
gifts of grace connected with the promises of salvation, but
quite generally to the inheritance of earthly possessions, which
Isaac had received from his father.
2G-1 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
VII. HISTORY OF ISHMAEL.
Chap. xxv. 12-18.
(Compare 1 Chron. i. 28-31.)
To show that the promises of God, which had been made to
Ishmael (chap. xvi. 10 sqq. and xvii. 20), were fulfilled, a short
account is given of his descendants ; and according to the settled
plan of Genesis, this account precedes the history of Isaac.
This is evidently the intention of the list which follows of the
twelve sons of Ishmael, who are given as princes of the tribes
which sprang from them. Nebajofh and Kedar are mentioned
in Isa. lx. 7 as rich possessors of flocks, and, according to the
current opinion which Wetzstein disputes, are the Nabatcvi et
Cedrei of Pliny (h. n. 5, 12). The Nabatceans held possession
of Arabia Petrcea, with Petra as their capital, and subsequently
extended toward the south and north-east, probably as far as
Babylon ; so that the name was afterwards transferred to all
the tribes to the east of the Jordan, and in the Nabata?an
writings became a common name for Chaldeans (ancient Baby-
lonians), Syrians, Canaanites, and others. The Kedarenes are
mentioned in Isa. xxi. 17 as good bowmen. They dwelt in the
desert between Arabia Petrsea and Babylon (Isa. xlii. 11 ; Ps.
cxx. 5). According to Wetzstein, they are to be found in the
nomad tribes of Arabia Petra3a up to Ilarra. The name Dumah,
Aovfieda, Aov/xai6a (Ptol. v. 19, 7, Steph. Byz.), Domata (Plin.
6, 32), has been retained in the modern Dumat el Jendel in
Nejd, the Arabian highland, four days' journey to the north of
Taima. — Tema: a trading people (Job vi. 19; Isa. xxi. 14;
mentioned in Jer. xxv. 23, between Dedan and Bus) in the
land of Taima, on the border of Nejd and the Syrian desert.
According to Wetzstein, Duma and Tema are still two important
places in Eastern Hauran, three-quarters of an hour apart.
Jetur and Naphish were neighbours of the tribes of Israel to
the east of the Jordan (1 Chron. v. 19), who made war upon
them along with the ITagrites, the' Aypatoi of Ptol. and Strabo.
From Jetur sprang the Tturceans, who lived, according to Strabo,
near the Trachonians in an almost inaccessible, mountainous,
CHAP. XXV. 12-18. 265
and cavernous country ; according to Wetsztein, in the moun-
tains of the Druses in the centre of the Hauran, possibly the
forefathers of the modern Druses. The other names are not
yet satisfactorily determined. For Adbeel, Mibsam, and Kedma,
the Arabian legends give no corresponding names. Mislima is
associated by Knob el with the Maicraifuiveis of PtoL vi. 7, 21,
to the N.E. of Medina ; Massa with the Maaavol on the N.E.
of Duma ; Hadad (the proper reading for ffadar, according to
1 Chron. i. 30, the LXX., Sam., Masor., and most MSS.) with
the Arabian coast land, Chathth, between Oman and Bahrein,
a district renowned for its lancers {Xarr^vla, Polyb. ; Attene,
Plin.). — Ver. 16. These are the Ishmaelites uin their villages
and encampments, twelve 'princes according to their tribes" "WJ :
premises hedged round, then a village without a wall in con-
trast with a walled town (Lev. xxv. 31). "T^O : a circular en-
campment of tents, the tent village of the Dudr of the Bedouins.
ritax, here and Num. xxv. 15, is not used of nations, but of the
tribe-divisions or single tribes of the Ishmaelites and Midianites,
for which the word had apparently become a technical term
among them. — Vers. 17, 18. Ishmael died at the age of 137,
and his descendants dwelt in Havilah — i.e. according to chap,
x. 29, the country of the Chauloiceans, on the borders of Arabia
Petrgea and Felix — as far as Shur (the desert of Jifar, xvi.
7) to the east of Egypt, " in the direction of Assyria." Havilah
and Shur therefore formed the south-eastern and south-western
boundaries of the territories of the Ishmaelites, from which they
extended their nomadic excursions towards the N.E. as far as
the districts under Assyrian rule, i.e. to the lands of the Eu-
phrates, traversing the whole of the desert of Arabia, or (as
Josephns says, Ant. i. 12, 4) dwelling from the Euphrates to
the Red Sea. Thus, according to the announcement of the
angel, Ishmael "encamped in the presence of all his brethren."
?33, to throw one's self, to settle down, with the subordinate idea
of keeping by force the place you have taken (Judg. vii. 12).
Luther wavers between corruit, vel cecidit, vel jixit tabernaculum.
PENT. — VOL. I.
200 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
VIII. HISTORY OF ISAAC.
Chap. xxv. 19-xxxv.
Isaac's twin sons. — chap. xxv. 13-34.
According to the plan of Genesis, the history (tholedoth) of
Isaac commences with the birth of his sons. But to give it the
character of completeness in itself, Isaac's birth and marriage
are mentioned again in vers. 19, 20, as well as his age at the
time of his marriage. The name given to the country of Re-
bekah (ver. 20) and the abode of Laban in chap, xxviii. 2, 6, 7,
xxxi. 18, xxxiii. 18, xxxv. 9, 26, xlvi. 15, viz. Padan-Aram, or more
concisely Padan (chap, xlviii. 7), "the flat, or flat land of Aram,"
for which Hosea uses "the field of Aram" (Hos. xii. 12), is not a
peculiar expression employed by the Elohist, or in the so-called
foundation-work, for Aram Naharaim, Mesopotamia (chap. xxiv.
10), but a more exact description of one particular district of Meso-
potamia, viz. of the large plain, surrounded by mountains, in which
the town of Haran was situated. The name was apparently trans-
ferred to the town itself afterwards. The history of Isaac consists
of two stages: (1) the period of his active life, from his marriage
and the birth of his sons till the departure of Jacob for Mesopo-
tamia (xxv. 20-xxviii. 9) ; and (2) the time of his suffering en-
durance in the growing infirmity of age, when the events of Jacob's
life form the leading feature of the still further expanded history
of salvation (chap, xxviii. 10-xxxv. 29). This suffering condition,
which lasted more than 40 years, reflected in a certain way the
historical position which Isaac held in the patriarchal triad, as a
passive rather than active link between Abraham and Jacob; and
even in the active period of his life many of the events of Abra-
ham's history were repeated in a modified form.
The name Jehovah prevails in the historical development of
the tholedoth of Isaac, in the same manner as in that of Terah;
although, on closer examination of the two, we find, first, that
in this portion of Genesis the references to God are less fre-
quent than in the earlier one ; and secondly, that instead of
the name Jehovah occurring more frequently than Elohim, the
name Elohim predominates in this second stage of the history.
CHAP. XXV. 21-26. 267
The first difference arises from the fact, that the historical matter
furnishes less occasion for the introduction of the name of God,
just because the revelations of God are more rare, since the ap-
pearances of Jehovah to Isaac and Jacob together are not so
numerous as those to Abraham alone. The second may be ex-
plained partly from the fact, that Isaac and Jacob did not perpetu-
ally stand in such close and living faith in Jehovah as Abraham,
and partly also from the fact, that the previous revelations of God
gave rise to other titles for the covenant God, such as " God of
Abraham," " God of my father," etc., which could be used in the
place of the name Jehovah (cf. chap. xxvi. 24, xxxi. 5, 42, xxxv.
1, 3, and the remarks on chap. xxxv. 9).
Vers. 21-26. Isaac's marriage, like Abraham's, was for a long
time unfruitful; not to extreme old age, however, but only for 20
years. The seed of the promise was to be prayed for from the
Lord, that it might not be regarded merely as a fruit of nature,
but be received and recognised as a gift of grace. At the same
time Isaac was to be exercised in the patience of faith in the
promise of God. After this lengthened test, Jehovah heard
his prayer in relation to his wife. n3W, ver. 21 and chap. xxx.
38, lit. opposite to, so that the object is before the eyes, has been
well explained by Luther thus : quod toto pectore et intentus in
calamitatem uxoris oraverit. Sicut quando oro pro aliquo, pro-
pono ilium mini in conspectum cordis mei, et nihil aliud video
aut cogito ; in eum solum animo intueor. — Vers. 22, 23. When
Eebekah conceived, the children struggled together in her
womb. In this she saw an evil omen, that the pregnancy
so long desired and entreated of Jehovah would bring misfor-
tune, and that the fruit of her womb might not after all secure
the blessing of the divine promise ; so that in intense excitement
she cried out, uIfit be so, wherefore am I?" i.e. why am I alive?
cf. chap, xxvii. 46. But she sought counsel from God : she
went to inquire of Jehovah. Where and how she looked for
a divine revelation in the matter, is not recorded, and there-
fore cannot be determined with certainty. Some suppose
that it was by prayer and sacrifice at a place dedicated to
Jehovah. Others imagine that she applied to a prophet — to
Abraham, Melchizedek, or Shem (Luther) ; a frequent custom
in Israel afterwards (1 Sam. ix. 9), but not probable in the pa-
triarchal age. The divine answer, couched in the form of a
268 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
prophetic oracle, assured her that she carried two nations in her
womb, one stronger than the other ; and that the greater (elder
or first-born) should serve the less (younger). TlBii :J*yt3Q : "pro-
ceeding from thy \comb, are separated." — Vers. 24 sqq. When
she was delivered, there were twins ; the first-born was reddish,
i.e. of a reddish-brown colour (1 Sam. xvi. 12, xvii. 42), and
" all over like a hairy cloak," i.e. his whole body as if covered
with a fur, with an unusual quantity of hair (hypertrichosis),
which is sometimes the case with new-born infants, but was a
sign in this instance of excessive sensual vigour and wildness.
The second had laid hold of the heel of the first, i.e. he came
into the world with his hand projected and holding the heel of
the first-born, a sign of his future attitude towards his brother.
From these accidental circumstances the children received their
names. The elder they called Esau, the hairy one ; the younger
Jacob, heel-holder: 2pV*_ from 3[?y (denom. of 2£y heel, Hos. xii.
3), to hold the heel, then to outwit (xxvii. 36), just as in
wrestling an attempt may be made to throw the opponent by
grasping the heel.
Vers. 27-34. Esau became "a cunning hunter, a man of the
field" i.e. a man wandering about in the fields. He was his
father's favourite, for " venison teas in his mouth" i.e. he was
fond of it. But Jacob was DO t^K, " a pious man " {Luther) ;
Dfi, integer, denotes here a disposition that finds pleasure in the
quiet life of home. D^nx 2V\ not dwelling in tents, but sitting
in the tents, in contrast with the wild hunter's life led by
his brother ; hence he was his mother's favourite. — Vers. 29
sqq. The difference in the characters of the two brothers was
soon shown in a singular circumstance, which was the turning-
point in their lives. Esau returned home one day from the
field quite exhausted, and seeing Jacob with a dish of lentils,
still a favourite dish in Syria and Egypt, he asked with pas-
sionate eagerness for some to eat : "Let me swallow some of that
red, that red there;" Q"1^, the brown-red lentil pottage. From
this he received the name Edom, just as among the ancient
Arabians persons received names from quite accidental circum-
stances, which entirely obscured their proper names. Jacob
made use of his brother's hunger to get him to sell his birth-
right. The birthright consisted afterwards in a double portion
of the father's inheritance (Deut. xxi. 17) ; but with the patri-
CHAP. XXVI. 1-5. 269
archs it embraced the chieftainship, the rule over the brethren
and the entire family (xxvii. 29), and the title to the blessing of
the promise (xxvii. 4, 27-29), which included the future posses-
sion of Canaan and of covenant fellowship with Jehovah (xxviii.
4). Jacob knew this, and it led him to anticipate the purposes
of God. Esau also knew it, but attached no value to it. There
is proof enough that he knew he was giving away, along with
the birthright, blessings which, because they were not of a mate-
rial but of a spiritual nature, had no particular value in his
estimation, in the words he made use of: "Behold I am going to
die (to meet death), and what is the birthright to me?" The only
thing of value to him was the sensual enjoyment of the present;
the spiritual blessings of the future his carnal mind was unable
to estimate. In this he showed himself to be /3e/3i]\o<; (Heb.
xii. 16), a profane man, who cared for nothing but the moment-
ary gratification of sensual desires, who " did eat and drink, and
rose up, and went his way, and so despised his birthright " (ver.
34). With these words the Scriptures judge and condemn the
conduct of Esau. Just as Ishmael was excluded from the pro-
mised blessing because he was begotten " according to the
flesh," so Esau lost it because his disposition was according to
the flesh. The frivolity with which he sold his birthright to his
brother for a dish of lentils, rendered him unfit to be the heir
and possessor of the promised grace. But this did not justify
Jacob's conduct in the matter. Though not condemned here,
yet in the further course of the history it is shown to have been
wrong, by the simple fact that he did not venture to make this
transaction the basis of a claim.
ISAAC S JOYS AND SORROWS. — CHAP. XXVI.
The incidents of Isaac's life which are collected together in
this chapter, from the time of his sojourn in the south country,
resemble in many respects certain events in the life of Abra-
ham ; but the distinctive peculiarities are such as to form a true
picture of the dealings of God, which were in perfect accord-
ance with the character of the patriarch.
Vers. 1-5. Kenewal of the promise. — A famine " in the
land " (i.e. Canaan, to which he had therefore returned from
270 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Hagar's well ; xxv. 11), compelled Isaac to leave Canaan, as it
had done Abraham before. Abraham went to Egypt, where
his wife was exposed to danger, from which she could only be
rescued by the direct interposition of God. Isaac also intended
to go there, but on the way, viz. in Gerar, he received instruc-
tion through a divine manifestation that he was to remain there.
As he was the seed to whom the land of Canaan was promised,
he was directed not to leave it. To this end Jehovah assured
him of the fulfilment of all the promises made to Abraham on
oath, with express reference to His oath (xxii. 16) to him
and to his posterity, and on account of Abraham's obedience of
faith. The only peculiarity in the words is the plural, " all these
lands." This plural refers to all the lands or territories of the
different Canaanitish tribes, mentioned in chap. xv. 19-21, like
the different divisions of the kingdom of Israel or Judah in 1
Chron. xiii. 2, 2 Chron. xi. 23. ?KH ; an antique form of T\}^,r\
occurring only in the Pentateuch. The piety of Abraham is
described in words that indicate a perfect obedience to all the
commands of God, and therefore frequently recur among the
legal expressions of a later date, nin rnjDBfe IDC' u to take care
of Jehovah's care," i.e. to observe Jehovah, His person, and His
will. Mislimereth, reverence, observance, care, is more closely
defined by " commandments, statutes, laws," to denote constant
obedience to all the revelations and instructions of God.
Vers. 6-11. Protection of Rebekah at Gerar. — As
A brali am had declared his wife to be his sister both in Egypt
and at Gerar, so did Isaac also in the latter place. But the
manner in which God protected Rebekah was very different from
that in which Sarah was preserved in both instances. Before
any one had touched Rebekah, the Philistine king discovered
the untruthfulness of Isaac's statement, having seen Isaac "sport-
ing with Rebekah," sc. in a manner to show that she was his
wife ; whereupon he reproved Isaac for what he had said, and
forbade any of his people to touch Rebekah on pain of death.
Whether this was the same Abimelech as the one mentioned in
chap. xx. cannot be decided with certainty. The name proves
nothing, for it was the standing official name of the kings of
Gerar (cf. 1 Sam. xxi. 11 and Ps. xxxiv.), as Pharaoh was of
the kings of Egypt. The identity is favoured by the pious con-
CHAP. XXVI. 12-22. 271
duct of Abimelech in both instances ; and no difficulty is caused
either by the circumstance that 80 years had elapsed between
the two events (for Abraham had only been dead five years,
and the age of 150 was no rarity then), or by the fact, that
whereas the first Abimelech had Sarah taken into his harem, the
second not only had no intention of doing this, but was anxious
to protect her from his people, inasmuch as it would be all the
easier to conceive of this in the case of the same king, on the
ground of his advanced age.
Vers. 12-17. Isaac's increasing wealth. — As Isaac had
experienced the promised protection (" I will be with thee," ver.
3) in the safety of his wife, so did he receive while in Gerar
the promised blessing. He sowed and received in that year " a
hundred measures" i.e. a hundred-fold return. This was an un-
usual blessing, as the yield even in very fertile regions is not
generally greater than from twenty-five to fifty-fold (Niebuhr
and Burclchardt), and it is only in the Ruhbe, that small and
most fruitful plain of Syria, that wheat yields on an average
eighty, and barley a hundred-fold. Agriculture is still practised
by the Bedouins, as well as grazing (Robinson, Pal. i. 77, and
Seetzen) ; so that Isaac's sowing was no proof that he had been
stimulated by the promise of Jehovah to take up a settled abode
in the promised land. — Vers. 13 sqq. Being thus blessed of Jeho-
vah, Isaac became increasingly (JP\j, vid. chap. viii. 3) greater
(i.e. stronger), until he was very powerful and his wealth very
great ; so that the Philistines envied him, and endeavoured to do
him injury by stopping up and filling with rubbish all the wells
that had been dug in his father's time ; and even Abimelech
requested him to depart, because he was afraid of his power.
Isaac then encamped in the valley of Gerar, i.e. in the " undu-
lating land of Gerar," through which the torrent (Jurf) from
Gerar flows from the south-east (Ritter, Erdk. 14, pp. 1084-5).
Vers. 18-22. Keopening and discovery of wells. — In
this valley Isaac dug open the old wells which had existed from
Abraham's time, and gave them the old names. His people also
dug three new wells. But Abimelech's people raised a contest
about two of these ; and for this reason Isaac called them Esek
and Sitnah, strife and opposition. The third there was no dis-
272 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
pute about ; and it received in consequence the name Rehoboth,
" breadths," for Isaac said, " Yea now (nnjP?* as in chap. xxix.
32, etc.) Jehovah has provided for us a broad space, that we may
be fruitful (multiply) in the land.'" This well was probably not
in the land of Gerar, as Isaac had removed thence, but in the
Wady Rnhaibeh, the name of which is suggestive of Rehoboth,
which stands at the point where the two roads from Gaza and
Hebron meet, about 3 hours to the south of Elusa, 8% to the south
of Beersheba, and where there are extensive ruins of the city of
the same name upon the heights, also the remains of wells
{Robinson, Pal. i. 289 sqq. ; Strauss, Sinai and Golgotha) ; where
too the name Sitnah seems to have been retained in the Wady
Shutein, with ruins on the northern hills between Ruhaibeh and
Khulasa (Elusa).
Vers. 23-25. Isaac's journey to Beersheba. — Here,
where Abraham had spent a long time (xxi. 33 sqq.), Jehovah
appeared to him during the night and renewed the promises al-
ready given ; upon which, Isaac built an altar and performed a
solemn service. Here his servants also dug a well near to the tents.
Vers. 26-33. Abimelech's treaty with Isaac. — The
conclusion of this alliance was substantially only a repetition
or renewal of the alliance entered into with Abraham ; but the
renewal itself arose so completely out of the circumstances, that
there is no ground wdiatever for denying that it occurred, or for
the hypothesis that our account is merely another form of the
earlier alliance; to say nothing of the fact, that besides the
agreement in the leading event itself, the attendant circum-
stances are altogether peculiar, and correspond to the events
which preceded. Abimelech not only brought his chief captain
PJdcol (supposed to be the same as in chap. xxi. 22, if Phicol is
not also an official name), but his JHO "friend" i.e. his privy
councillor, Ahuzzath. Isaac referred to the hostility they had
shown; to which Abimelech replied, that they (he and his people)
did not smite him (Vtt), i.e. drive him away by force, but let
him depart in peace, and expressed a wish that there might be
an oath between them. i"6x the oath, as an act of self-impreca-
tion, was to form the basis of the covenant to be made. From
this npx came also to be used for a covenant sanctioned by an
CHAP. XXVII. 1-4. 273
oath (Deut. xxix. 11, 13). nfegn DK "that thou do not: " DN a
particle of negation used in an oath (xiv. 23, etc.). (On the verb
with zere, see Ges. § 75, Anm. 17 ; Ewald, § 224.)— The same
day Isaac's servants informed him of the well which they had
dug ; and Isaac gave it the name Shebdli (r,J?;?^, oath), in com-
memoration of the treaty made on oath. " Therefore the city
teas called Beersheba." This derivation of the name does not
shut the other (xxi. 31) out, but seems to confirm it. As the
treaty made on oath between Abimelech and Isaac was only a
renewal of his covenant concluded before with Abraham, so the
name Beersheba was also renewed by the well Shebah. The
reality of the occurrence is supported by the fact that the two
wells are in existence still (vid. chap. xxi. 31).
Vers. 34, 35. Esau's Marriage. — To the various troubles
which the Philistines prepared for Isaac, but which, through
the blessing of God, only contributed to the increase of his
wealth and importance, a domestic cross was added, which
caused him great and lasting sorrow. Esau married two wives
in the 40th year of his. age, the 100th of Isaac's life (xxv. 26);
and that not from his own relations in Mesopotamia, but from
among the Canaanites whom God had cast off. On their names,
see chap, xxxvi. 2, 3. They became " bitterness of spirit" the
cause of deep trouble, to his parents, viz. on account of their
Canaanitish character, which was so opposed to the vocation of
the patriarchs ; whilst Esau by these marriages furnished another
proof, how thoroughly his heart was set upon earthly things.
Isaac's blessing. — chap, xxvii.
Vers. 1-4. When Isaac had grown old, and his eyes wTere
dim, so that he could no longer see (ft&HO from seeing, with the
neg. |» as in chap. xvi. 2, etc.), he wished, in the consciousness of
approaching death, to give his blessing to his elder son. Isaac
was then in his 137th year, at which age his half-brother
Ishmael had died fourteen years before ; 1 and this, with the
increasing infirmities of age, may have suggested the thought
1 Cf. Lightfoot, opp. 1, p. 19. This correct estimate of Luther's is based
upon the following calculation: — When Joseph was introduced to Pharaoh,
he was thirty years old (xli. 46), and when Jacob went into Egypt, thirty-
274 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
of death, though he did not die till forty-three years afterwards
(xxxv. 28). Without regard to the words which were spoken
by God with reference to the children before their birth, and
without taking any notice of Esau's frivolous barter of his
birthright and his ungodly connection with Canaanites, Isaac
maintained his preference for Esau, and directed him therefore
to take his things (DV?, hunting gear), his quiver and bow, to
hunt game and prepare a savoury dish, that he might eat, and
his soul might bless him. As his preference for Esau was fos-
tered and strengthened by, if it did not spring from, his liking
for game (xxv. 28), so now he wished to raise his spirits for
imparting the blessing by a dish of venison prepared to his
taste. In this the infirmity of his flesh is evident. At the
same time, it was not merely because of his partiality for Esau,
but unquestionably on account of the natural rights of the first-
born, that he wished to impart the blessing to him, just as the
desire to do this before his death arose from the consciousness
of his patriarchal call.
Vers. 5-17. Rebekah, who heard what he said, sought to
frustrate this intention, and to secure the blessing for her
(favourite) son Jacob. Whilst Esau was away hunting, she
told Jacob to take his father a dish, which she would prepare
from two kids according to his taste; and, having introduced
himself as Esau, to ask for the blessing " before Jehovah."
Jacob's objection, that the father would know him by his smooth
skin, and so, instead of blessing him, might pronounce a curse
upon him as a mocker, i.e. one who was trifling with his blind
father, she silenced by saying, that she would take the curse
upon herself. She evidently relied upon the word of promise,
and thought that she ought to do her part to secure its fulfil-
ment by directing the father's blessing to Jacob; and to this
end she thought any means allowable. Consequently she was
so assured of the success of her stratagem as to have no fear of
the possibility of a curse. Jacob then acceded to her plan, and
nine, as the seven years of abundance and two of famine had then passed
by (xlv. 6). But Jacob was at that time 130 years old (xlvii. 9). Conse-
quently Joseph was born before Jacob was ninety-one ; and as his birth
took place iu the fourteenth year of Jacob's sojourn in Mesopotamia (cf-
xxx. 25, and xxix. 18, 21, and 27), Jacob's flight to Laban occurred in
the seventy-seventh year of his own life, and the 137th of Isaac's
CHAP. XXVII. 18-29. 275
fetched the goats. Kebekah prepared them according to her
husband's taste; and having told Jacob to put on Esau's best
clothes which were with her in the dwelling (the tent, not the
house), she covered his hands and the smooth (i.e. the smooth
parts) of his neck with the skins of the kids of the goats,1 and
sent him with the savoury dish to his father.
Vers. 18-29. But Jacob had no easy task to perform before
his father. As soon as he had spoken on entering, his father
asked him, " Who art thou, my son ? " On his replying, " I cm
Esau, thy first-born" the father expressed his surprise at the
rapid success of his hunting; and when he was satisfied with
the reply, " Jehovah thy God sent it (the thing desired) to meet
me? he became suspicious about the voice, and bade him come
nearer, that he might feel him. But as his hands appeared hairy
like Esau's, he did not recognise him; and " so he blessed him"
In this remark (ver. 23) the writer gives the result of Jacob's
attempt ; so that the blessing is merely mentioned proleptically
here, and refers to the formal blessing described afterwards, and
not to the first greeting and salutation. — Vers. 24 sqq. After his
father, in order to get rid of his suspicion about the voice, had
asked him once more, "Art thou really my son Esau?" and
Jacob had replied, " I am" C^ = yes), he told him to hand him
the savoury dish that he might eat. After eating, he kissed his
son as a sign of his paternal affection, and in doing so he smelt
the odour of his clothes, i.e. the clothes of Esau, which were
thoroughly scented with the odour of the fields, and then im-
parted his blessing (vers. 27-29). The blessing itself is
thrown, as the sign of an elevated state of mind, into the poetic
style of parallel clauses, and contains the peculiar forms of
poetry, such as nxn for HIA, rnn for rPn, etc. The smell of the
clothes with the scent of the field suggested to the patriarch's
mind the image of his son's future prosperity, so that he saw him
in possession of the promised land and the full enjoyment of
its valuable blessings, having the smell of the field which
Jehovah blessed, i.e. the garden of paradise, and broke out into
the wish, " God (Ha-Elohim, the personal God, not Jehovah, the
1 We must not think of our European goats, whose skins would be
quite unsuitable for any such deception. "It is the camel-goat of the
East, whose black, silk-like hair was used even by the Romans as a substi-
tute for human hair. Martial xii. 4C." — Tuch on ver. 16.
27G THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
covenant God) give thee from the dew of heaven, and the fat
fields of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine" i.e. a land
blessed with the dew of heaven and a fruitful soil. In Eastern
countries, where there is so little rain, the dew is the most im-
portant prerequisite for the growth of the fruits of the earth,
and is often mentioned therefore as a source of blessing (Deut.
xxxiii. 13,28; Hos. xiv. 6; Zecli. viii. 12). In ^opD, not-
withstanding the absence of the Dagesh from the $, the D is the
prep. JO, as the parallel xtsp proves ; and D*fBB> both here and in
ver. 39 are the fat (fertile) districts of a country. The rest of
the blessing had reference to the future pre-eminence of his
son. He was to be lord not only over his brethren (i.e. over
kindred tribes), but over (foreign) peoples and nations also.
The blessing rises here to the idea of universal dominion, which
was to be realized in the fact that, according to the attitude
assumed by the people towards him as their lord, it would
secure to them either a blessing or a curse. If we compare this
blessing with the promises which Abraham received, there are
two elements of the latter which are very apparent ; viz. the
possession of the land, in the promise of the rich enjoyment of
its produce, and the numerous increase of posterity, in the pro-
mised dominion over the nations. The third element, however,
the blessing of the nations in and through the seed of Abra-
ham, is so generalized in the expression, which is moulded
according to chap. xii. 3, " Cursed be every one that curseth
thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee," that the person
blessed is not thereby declared to be the medium of salvation to
the nations. Since the intention to give the blessing to Esau
the first-born did not spring from proper feelings towards
Jehovah and His promises, the blessing itself, as the use of the
word Elohim instead of Jehovah or El Shaddai (cf. xxviii. 3)
clearly shows, could not rise to the full height of the divine
blessings of salvation, but referred chiefly to the relation in
which the two brothers and their descendants would stand to
one another, the theme with which Isaac's soul was entirely
filled. It was only the painful discovery that, in blessing
against his will, he had been compelled to follow the saving
counsel of God, which awakened in him the consciousness of
his patriarchal vocation, and gave him the spiritual power to
impart the ''blessing of Abraham" to the son whom he had
CHAP. XXVII. 30-40. 277
kept back, but whom Jehovah had chosen, when he was about
to send him away to Haran (xxviii. 3, 4).
Vers. 30-40. Jacob had hardly left his father, after receiving
the blessing (N^J "^K, was only gone out), when Esau returned
and came to Isaac, with the game prepared, to receive the bless-
ing. The shock was inconceivable which Isaac received, when
he found that he had blessed another, and not Esau — that, in
fact, he had blessed Jacob. At the same time he neither could
nor would, either curse him on account of the deception which
he had practised, or withdraw the blessing imparted. For he
could not help confessing to himself that he had sinned and
brought the deception upon himself by his carnal preference for
Esau. Moreover, the blessing was not a matter of subjective
human affection, but a right entrusted by the grace of God to
paternal supremacy and authority, in the exercise of which the
person blessing, being impelled and guided by a higher autho-
rity, imparted to the person to be blest spiritual possessions and
powers, which the will of man could not capriciously withdraw.
Regarding this as the meaning of the blessing, Isaac necessarily
saw in what had taken place the will of God, which had directed
to Jacob the blessing that he had intended for Esau. He there-
fore said, " I have blessed him; yea, he will be (remain) blessed"
(cf. Heb. xii. 17). Even the great and bitter lamentation into
which Esau broke out could not change his father's mind. To
his entreaty in ver. 34, " Bless me, even me also, 0 my father /"
he replied, " Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away
thy blessing" Esau answered, " Is it that (*?l!) they have named
him Jacob (overreacher), and he has overreached me twiceV i.e.
has he received the name Jacob from the fact that he has twice
outwitted me ? *3H is used " when the cause is not rightly
known" (cf. chap. xxix. 15). To his further entreaty, "Hast
thou not reserved a blessing for me?" fex, lit. to lay aside), Isaac
repeated the substance of the blessing given to Jacob, and added,
" and to thee (^3p for ^? as in chap. iii. 9), now, what can I do, my
son ?" When Esau again repeated, with tears, the entreaty that
Isaac would bless him also, the father gave him a blessing (vers.
39, 40), but one which, when compared with the blessing of
Jacob, was to be regarded rather as "a modified curse," and
which is not even described as a blessing, but "introduced a
disturbing element into Jacob's blessing, a retribution for the
278 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
impure means by which he had obtained it." "Behold" it
states, "from the fat fields of the earth will thy dwelling be, and
from the dew of heaven from above." By a play upon the words
Isaac uses the same expression as in ver. 28, " from the fat fields
of the earth, and from the dew," but in the opposite sense, JO
being partitive there, and privative here, "from=away from."
The context requires that the words should be taken thus, and
not in the sense of " thy dwelling shall partake of the fat of the
earth and the dew of heaven" (Vulg., Lath., etc.).1 Since Isaac
said (ver. 37) he had given Jacob the blessing of the super-
abundance of corn and wine, he could not possibly promise Esau
also fat fields and the dew of heaven. Nor would this agree
with the words which follow, "By thy sword wilt thou live"
Moreover, the privative sense of JO is thoroughly poetical (cf.
2 Sam. i. 22 ; Job xi. 15, etc.). The idea expressed in the
words, therefore, was that the dwelling-place of Esau would be
the very opposite of the land of Canaan, viz. an unfruitful land.
This is generally the condition of the mountainous country of
Edom, which, although not without its fertile slopes and valleys,
especially in the eastern portion (cf . Robinson, Pal. ii. p. 552), is
thoroughly waste and barren in the western ; so that Seetzen says
it consists of "the most desolate and barren mountains probably
in the world." The mode of life and occupation of the inhabit-
ants were adapted to the country. "By {lit. on) thy sword thou
wilt live;" i.e. thy maintenance will depend on the sword (/V as
in Deut. viii. 3 cf. Isa. xxxviii. 16), " live by war, rapine, and
freebooting" (Knobel). "And, thy brother thou ivilt serve; yet it
ivill come to pass, as ("^'N?, &£. in proportion as, cf. Num. xxvii.
14) thoit shakest (tossest), thou wilt break his yoke from thy neck."
"n~i, "to rove about" (Jer. ii. 31 ; Flos. xii. 1), Hiphil "to cause
(the thoughts) to rove about" (Ps. lv. 3) ; but Ilengstenberg 'a
rendering is the best here, viz. " to shake, sc. the yoke." In the
wild, sport-loving Esau there was aptly prefigured the character
of his posterity. Josephus describes the Idumrcan people as " a
tumultuous and disorderly nation, always on the watch on every
1 I cannot discover, however, in Mai. i. 3 an authentic proof of the pri-
vative meaning, as Kurtz and Delitzsch do, since the prophet's words, " I
have hated Esau, and hud his mountains and his heritage waste," are not
descriptive of the natural condition of Idumaea, but of the desolation to
which the land was given up.
CHAP. XXVII. 30-40. 279
motion, delighting in mutations" ( Winston's tr. : de bell. Jud. 4,
4, 1). The mental eye of the patriarch discerned in the son his
whole future family in its attitude to its brother-nation, and he
promised Edom, not freedom from the dominion of Israel (for
Esau was to serve his brother, as Jehovah had predicted before
their birth), but only a repeated and not unsuccessful struggle
for freedom. And so it was ; the historical relation of Edom to
Israel assumed the form of a constant reiteration of servitude,
revolt, and reconquest. After a long period of independence at
the first, the Edomites were defeated by Saul (1 Sam. xiv. 47)
and subjugated by David (2 Sam. viii. 14) ; and, in spite of an
attempt at revolt under Solomon (1 Kings xi. 14 sqq.), they
remained subject to the kingdom of Judah until the time of
Joram, when they rebelled. They were subdued again by
Amaziah (2 Kings xiv. 7; 2 Chron. xxv. 11 sqq.), and remained
in subjection under Uzziah and Jotham (2 Kings xiv. 22 ;
2 Chron. xxvi. 2). It was not till the reign of Ahaz that they
shook the yoke of Judah entirely off (2 Kings xvi. 6 ; 2 Chron.
xxviii. 17), without Judah being ever able to reduce them again.
At length, however, they were completely conquered by John
Hyrcanus about B.C. 129, compelled to submit to circumcision,
and incorporated in the Jewish state (Josephus, Ant. xiii. 9, 1,
xv. 7, 9). At a still later period, through Antipater and Herod,
they established an Idumsean dynasty over Juclea, which lasted
till the complete dissolution of the Jewish state.
Thus the words of Isaac to his two sons were fulfilled, —
words which are justly said to have been spoken " in faith con-
cerning things to come" (Heb. xi. 20). For the blessing was a
prophecy, and that not merely in the case of Esau, but in that
of Jacob also ; although Isaac was deceived with regard to the
person of the latter. Jacob remained blessed, therefore, because,
according to the predetermination of God, the elder was to' serve
the younger ; but the deceit by which his mother prompted him
to secure the blessing was never approved. On the contrary,
the sin was followed by immediate punishment. Eebekah was
obliged to send her pet son into a foreign land, away from his
father's house, and in an utterly destitute condition. She did
not see him for twenty years, even if she lived till his return,
and possibly never saw again. Jacob had to atone for his sin
against Doth brother and father by a long and painful exile, in the
280 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
midst of privation, anxiety, fraud, and want. Isaac was punished
for retaining his preference for Esau, in opposition to the revealed
will of Jehovah, by the success of Jacob's stratagem ; and Esau
for his contempt of the birthright, by the loss of the blessing of
the first-born. In this way a higher hand prevailed above the
acts of sinful men, bringing the counsel and will of Jehovah to
eventual triumph, in opposition to human thought and will.
Vers. 41-46. Esau's complaining and weeping were now
changed into mortal hatred of his brother. " The days of mourn-
ing" he said to himself, "for my father are at hand, and I loill
kill my brother Jacob" ^2X ?3X : genit. obj. as in Amos viii. 10 ;
Jer. vi. 26. He would put off his intended fratricide that he
might not hurt his father's mind. — Ver. 42. When Rebekah
was informed by some one of Esau's intention, she advised Jacob
to protect himself from his revenge (Enjnn to procure comfort
by retaliation, equivalent to " avenge himself," EjMnO, Isa. i. 241),
by fleeing to her brother Laban in Haran, and remaining there
" some days" as she mildly puts it, until his brother's wrath was
subdued. "For why should I lose you both in one day?" viz.
Jacob through Esau's vengeance, and Esau as a murderer by
the avenger of blood (chap. ix. 6, cf. 2 Sam. xiv. 6, 7). In
order to obtain Isaac's consent to this plan, without hurting his
feelings by telling him of Esau's murderous intentions, she spoke
to him of her troubles on account of the Hittite wives of Esau,
and the weariness of life that she should feel if Jacob also were
to marry one of the daughters of the land, and so introduced the
idea of sending Jacob to her relations in Mesopotamia, with a
view to his marriage there.
JACOB S FLIGHT TO HARAN AND DREAM IN BETHEL. — CHAP.
XXVIII.
Vers. 1-9. Jacob's departure from his parents' house.
— Rebekah' s complaint reminded Isaac of his own call, and his
consequent duty to provide for Jacob's marriage in a manner
corresponding to the divine counsels of salvation. — Vers. 1-5.
He called Jacob, therefore, and sent him to Padan-Aram to his
mother's relations, with instructions to seek a wife there, and not
1 This reference is incorrect ; the Niphal is used in Isa. i. 24, the
Hithpael in Jcr. v. 9-29. Tr.
CHAP. XXVIII. 10-22. 281
among the daughters of Canaan, giving him at the same time
the " blessing of Abraham" i.e. the blessing of promise, which
Abraham had repeatedly received from the Lord, but which is
more especially recorded in chap. xvii. 2 sqq., and xxii. 16-18. —
Vers. 6-9. When Esau heard of this blessing and the sending
away of Jacob, and saw therein the displeasure of his parents
at his Hittite wives, he went to Ishmael— i.e. to the family of Ish-
mael, for Ishmael himself had been dead fourteen years (p. 273) —
and took as a third wife Mahalath, a daughter of Ishmael (called
Bashemath in chap, xxxvi. 3, a descendant of Abraham there-
fore), a step by which he might no doubt ensure the approval
of his parents, but in which he fajled to consider that Ishmael
had been separated from the house of Abraham and family of
promise by the appointment of God ; so that it only furnished
another proof that he had no thought of the religious interests of
the chosen family, and was unfit to be the recipient of divine
revelation.
Vers. 10—22. Jacob's dream at Bethel. — As he was
travelling from Beersheba, where Isaac was then staying (xxvi.
25), to Haran, Jacob came to a place where he was obliged to
stop all night, because the sun had set. The words "lie hit
(lighted) upon the place" indicate the apparently accidental, yet
really divinely appointed choice of this place for his night-
quarters ; and the definite article points it out as having become
well known through the revelation of God that ensued. After
making a pillow with the stones (nb;X")», head-place, pillow), he
fell asleep and had a dream, in which he saw a ladder resting
upon the earth, with the top reaching to heaven ; and upon
it angels of God going up and down, and Jehovah Himself
standing above it. The ladder was a visible symbol of the real
and uninterrupted fellowship between God in heaven and His
people upon earth. The angels upon it carry up the wants of
men to God, and bring down the assistance and protection of
God to men. The ladder stood there upon the earth, just where
Jacob was lying in solitude, poor, helpless, and forsaken by men.
Above in heaven stood Jehovah, and explained in words the
symbol which he saw. Proclaiming Himself to Jacob as the
God of his fathers, He not only confirmed to him all the pro-
mises of the fathers in their fullest extent, but promised him
PENT. — VOL. I. T
282 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
protection on his journey and a safe return to his home (vers.
13-15). But as the fulfilment of this promise to Jacob was still
far off, God added the firm assurance, " I will not leave thee till
I have done (carried out) what I have told thee." — Vers. 16 sqq.
Jacob gave utterance to the impression made by this vision as
soon as he awoke from sleep, in the words, " Surely Jehovah is
in this place, and I knew it not." Not that the omnipresence of
God was unknown to him ; but that Jehovah in His condescend-
ing mercy should be near to him even here, far away from his
father's house and from the places consecrated to His worship, —
it was this which he did not know or imagine. The revelation
was intended not only to stamp the blessing, with which Isaac
had dismissed him from his home, with the seal of divine approval,
but also to impress upon Jacob's mind the fact, that although
Jehovah would be near to protect and guide him even in a
foreign land, the land of promise was the holy ground on which
the God of his fathers would set up the covenant of His grace.
On his departure from that land, he was to carry with him a
sacred awe of the gracious presence of Jehovah there. To that
end the Lord proved to him that He was near, in such a way
that the place appeared " dreadful" inasmuch as the nearness
of the holy God makes an alarming impression upon unholy
man, and the consciousness of sin grows into the fear of death.
But in spite of this alarm, the place was none other than " the
house of God and the gate of heaven" i.e. a place where God dwelt,
and a way that opened to Him in heaven. — Ver. 18. In the
morning Jacob set up the stone at his head, as a monament
(n33>E>) to commemorate the revelation he had received from God ;
and poured oil upon the top, to consecrate it as a memorial of
the mercy that had been shown him there (yisionis insigne
fjLvrjfjLocrvvov, Calvin), not as an idol or an object of divine wor-
ship (yid. Ex. xxx. 26 sqq.). — He then gave the place the name
of Bethel, i.e. House of God, whereas (WW) the town had been
called Luz before. This antithesis shows that Jacob gave the
name, not to the place where the pillar was set up, but to the
town, in the neighbourhood of which he had received the divine
revelation. lie renewed it on his return from Mesopotamia
(xxxv. 15). This is confirmed by chap, xlviii. 3, where Jacob,
like the historian in chap. xxxv. 6, 7, speaks of Luz as the place
of this revelation. There is nothing at variance with this in
CHAP. XXIX. 1-14. 283
Josh. xvi. 2, xviii. 13 ; for it is not Bethel as a city, but the
mountains of Bethel, that are there distinguished from Luz (see
my Commentary on Josh. xvi. 2).1 — Ver. 20. Lastly, Jacob
made a vow : that if God would give him the promised protec-
tion on his journey, and bring him back in safety to his father's
house, Jehovah should be his God (nVTi in ver. 21 commences
the apodosis), the stone which he had set up should be a house
of God, and Jehovah should receive a tenth of all that He gave
to him. It is to be noticed here, that Elohim is used in the pro-
tasis instead of Jehovah, as constituting the essence of the vow :
if Jehovah, who had appeared to him, proved Himself to be God
by fulfilling His promise, then he would acknowledge and worship
Him as his God, by making the stone thus set up into a house
of God, i.e. a place of sacrifice, and by tithing all his possessions.
With regard to the fulfilment of this vow, we learn from chap,
xxxv. 7 that Jacob built an altar, and probably also dedicated
the tenth to God, i.e. offered it to Jehovah ; or, as some have
supposed, applied it partly to the erection and preservation of
the altar, and partly to burnt and thank-offerings combined with
sacrificial meals, according to the analogy of Deut. xiv. 28, 29
(cf. chap. xxxi. 54, xlvi. 1).
Jacob's stay in haran. his double marriage and
children. — chap. xxix. and xxx.
Vers. 1-14. Arrival in Haran, and reception by
Lab an. — Being strengthened in spirit by the nocturnal vision,
Jacob proceeded on his journey into "the land of the sons of
the East ;" by which we are to understand, not so much the
1 The fact mentioned here has often been cited as the origin of the
anointed stones Qiotirv'hoi) of the heathen, and this heathen custom has been
regarded as a degeneration of the patriarchal. But apart from this essential
difference, that the Baetulian worship was chiefly connected with meteoric
stones (cf. F. von Dalberg, iib. d. Meteor -cnltus d. Alten), which were sup-
posed to have come down from some god, and were looked upon as deified,
this opinion is at variance with the circumstance, that Jacob himself, in
consecrating the stone by pouring oil upon it, only followed a custom already
established, and still more with the fact, that the name (Scthv'hoi, fioitTvhict,
notwithstanding its sounding like Bethel, can hardly have arisen from the
name Beth-El, Gr. B«;0ijA, since the r for 6 would be perfectly inexplicable.
Dietrich derives Pctirvhtou from ^3, to render inoperative, and interprets it
amulet.
284 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Arabian desert, that reaches to the Euphrates, as Mesopotamia,
which lies on the other side of that river. For there he saw
the well in the field (ver. 2), by which three flocks were lying,
waiting for the arrival of the other flocks of the place, before
they could be watered. The remark in ver. 2, that the stone
upon the well's mouth was large (n?"t? without the article is a
predicate), does not mean that the united strength of all the
shepherds was required to roll it away, whereas Jacob rolled it
away alone (ver. 10) ; but only that it was not in the power of
every shepherd, much less of a shepherdess like Rachel, to roll
it away. Hence in all probability the agreement that had been
formed among them, that they would water the flocks together.
The scene is so thoroughly in harmony with the customs of the
East, both ancient and modern, that the similarity to the one
described in chap. xxiv. 11 sqq. is by no means strange (yid.
Eob. Pal. i. 301, 304, ii. 351, 357, 371). Moreover the well
was very differently constructed from that at which Abraham's
servant met with Rebekah. There the water was drawn at once
from the (open) well and poured into troughs placed ready for
the cattle, as is the ease now at most of the wells in the East ;
whereas here the well was closed up with a stone, and there is
no mention of pitchers and troughs. The well, therefore, was
probably a cistern dug in the ground, which was covered up or
closed with a large stone, and probably so constructed, that after
the stone had been rolled away the flocks could be driven to the
edge to drink.1 — Vers. 5, 6. Jacob asked the shepherds where
they lived ; from which it is probable that the well was not
situated, like that in chap. xxiv. 11, in the immediate neigh-
bourhood of the town of Haran ; and when they said they were
from Haran, he inquired after Laban, the son, i.e. the descen-
dant, of Nahor, and how he was (& Own : is he well ?) ; and
received the reply, " Well; and behold Rachel, his daughter, is just
coming (riN2 porticijj.) with the flock." When Jacob thereupon
told the shepherds to water the flocks and feed them again, for
1 Like the cistern Bir Beshat, described by Rosen., in the valley of Hebron,
or those which Robinson found in the desert of Judah (Pal. ii. 165), hol-
lowed out in the great mass of rock, and covered with a large, thick, flat
stone, in the middle of which a round hole had been left, which formed the
opening of the cistern, and in many cases was closed up with a heavy stone,
which it would take two or three men to roll away.
CHAP. XXIX. 15-30. 285
the day was still "great," — i.e. it wanted a long while to the
evening, and was not yet time to drive them in (to the folds to
rest for the night), — he certainly only wanted to get the shep-
herds away from the well, that he might meet with his cousin
alone. But as Rachel came up in the meantime, he was so
carried away by the feelings of relationship, possibly by a certain
love at first sight, that he rolled the stone away from the well,
watered her flock, and after kissing her, introduced himself
with tears of joyous emotion as her cousin ([}^ ^X, brother,
i.e. relation of her father) and Rebekah's son. What the other
shepherds thought of all this, is passed over as indifferent to the
purpose of the narrative, and the friendly reception of Jacob
by Laban is related immediately afterwards. When Jacob had
told Laban "all these tilings" — i.e. hardly "the cause of his
journey, and the things which had happened to him in relation
to the birthright" (Rosenmidler), but simply the things men-
tioned in vers. 2-12, — Laban acknowledged him as his relative :
" Yes, thou art my bone and my flesh " (cf . ii. 23 and Judg. ix.
2) ; and thereby eo ipso ensured him an abode in his house.
Vers. 15-30. Jacob's double maekiage. — After a full
month (" a month of days," chap. xli. 1 ; Num. xi. 20, etc.),
during which time Laban had discovered that he was a good
and useful shepherd, he said to him, " Shouldst thou, because
thou art my relative, serve me for notfdng ? fix me thy wages."
Laban's selfishness comes out here under the appearance of
justice and kindness. To preclude all claim on the part of his
sister's son to gratitude or affection in return for his services, he
proposes to pay him like an ordinary servant. Jacob offered
to serve him seven years for Rachel, the younger of his two
daughters, whom he loved because of her beauty ; i.e. just as
many years as the week has days, that he might bind himself
to a complete and sufficient number of years of service. For
the elder daughter, Leah, had weak eyes, and consequently was
not so good-looking ; since bright eyes, with fire in them, are
regarded as the height of beauty in Oriental women. Laban
agreed. He would rather give his daughter to him than to a
stranger.1 Jacob's proposal may be explained, partly on the
1 This is the case still with the Bedouins, the Druses, and other Eastern
tribes. (Burckhardt, Volney, Layard, and Lane.)
28 G THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
ground that he was not then in a condition to give the cus-
tomary dowry, or the usual presents to relations, and partly also
from the fact that his situation with regard to Esau compelled
him to remain some time with Laban. The assent on the part
of Laban cannot be accounted for from the custom of selling
daughters to husbands, for it cannot be shown that the pur-
chase of wives was a general custom at that time ; but is to be
explained solely on the ground of Laban's selfishness and avarice,
which came out still more plainly afterwards. To Jacob, how-
ever, the seven years seemed but " a few days, because he loved
Rachel." This is to be understood, as C. a Lapide observes,
" not affective, but appreciative" i.e. in comparison with the re-
ward to be obtained for his service. — Vers. 21 sqq. But when
Jacob asked for his reward at the expiration of this period, and
according to the usual custom a great marriage feast had been
prepared, instead of Rachel, Laban took his elder daughter
Leah into the bride-chamber, and Jacob went in unto her,
without discovering in the dark the deception that had been
practised. Thus the overreacher of Esau was overreached him-
self, and sin was punished by sin. — Vers. 25 sqq. But when
Jacob complained to Laban the next morning of his deception,
he pleaded the custom of the country : |3 nfe^P K?, " it is not
accustomed to be so in our place, to give the younger before the
first-born." A perfectly worthless excuse ; for if this had really
been the custom in Haran as in ancient India and elsewhere,
he ought to have told Jacob of it before. But to satisfy Jacob,
he promised him that in a week he would give him the younger
also, if he would serve him seven years longer for her. — Ver.
27. "Fulfil her iceck " i.e. let Leah's marriage-week pass over.
The wedding feast generally lasted a week (cf. Judg. xiv. 12 ;
Job xi. 19). After this week had passed, he received Rachel
also : two wives in eight days. To each of these Laban gave
one maid-servant to wait upon her ; less, therefore, than Bethuel
gave to his daughter (xxiv. fil). — This bigamy of Jacob must
not be judged directly by the Mosaic law, which prohibits mar-
riage with two sisters at the same time (Lev. xviii. 18), or set
down as incest (Calvin, etc.), since there was no positive law on
the point in existence then. At the same time, it is not to be
justified on the ground, that the blessing of God made it the
means of the fulfilment of His promise, viz. the multiplication
CHAP. XXIX. 31-35, XXX. 1-8. 287
of the seed of Abraham into a great nation. Just as it had
arisen from Laban's deception and Jacob's love, which regarded
outward beauty alone, and therefore from sinful infirmities, so
did it become in its results a true school of affliction to Jacob, in
which God showed to him, by many a humiliation, that such
conduct as his was quite unfitted to accomplish the divine coun-
sels, and thus condemned the ungodliness of such a marriage,
and prepared the way for the subsequent prohibition in the law.
Vers. 31-35. Leah's first sons. — Jacob's sinful weakness
showed itself even after his marriage, in the fact that he loved
Eachel more than Leah ; and the chastisement of God, in the
fact that the hated wife was blessed with children, whilst Rachel
for a long time remained unfruitful. By this it was made appa-
rent once more, that the origin of Israel was to be a work not of
nature, but of grace. Leah had four sons in rapid succession,
and gave them names which indicated her state of mind :
(1) Reuben, " see, a son ! " because she regarded his birth as
a pledge that Jehovah had graciously looked upon her misery,
for now her husband would love her ; (2) Simeon, i.e. " hear-
ing," for Jehovah had heard, i.e. observed that she was hated ;
(3) Levi, i.e. attachment, for she hoped that this time, at least,
after she had born three sons, her husband would become
attached to her, i.e. show her some affection ; (4) Juddh («TT^n^
verbal, of the fut. hoph. of nT1), i-e. praise, not merely the praised
one, but the one for whom Jehovah is praised. After this fourth
birth there was a pause (ver. 31), that she might not be unduly
lifted up by her good fortune, or attribute to the fruitfulness of
her own womb what the faithfulness of Jehovah, the covenant
God, had bestowed upon her.
Chap. xxx. 1-8. Bilhah's sons. — When Eachel thought of
her own barrenness, she became more and more envious of her
sister, who was blessed with sons. But instead of praying, either
directly or through her husband, as Eebekah had done, to
Jehovah, who had promised His favour to Jacob (xxviii. 13 sqq.),
she said to Jacob, in passionate displeasure, " Get me children,
or I shall die;" to which he angrily replied, " Am I in God's
stead (i.e. equal to God, or God), who hath withheld from thee the
fruit of the womb ? " i.e., Can I, a powerless man, give thee what
288 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
the Almighty God has withheld? Almighty like God Jacob
certainly was not ; but he also wanted the power which he might
have possessed, the power of prayer, in firm reliance upon the
promise of the Lord. Hence he could neither help nor advise
his beloved wife, but only assent to her proposal, that he should
beget children for her through her maid Bilhah (cf. xvi. 2),
through whom two sons were born to her. The first she named
Dan, i.e. judge, because God had judged her, i.e. procured her
justice, hearkened to her voice (prayer), and removed the re-
proach of childlessness ; the second Naphtali, i.e. my conflict, or
my fought one, for " fightings of God, she said, have I fought
loith my sister, and also prevailed? BwK vWBJ are neither
luctationes quam maxima?, nor " a conflict in the cause of God,
because Rachel did not wish to leave the founding of the nation
of God to Leah alone" {Knob el), but " fightings for God and
His mercy" {Hengstenberg), or, what comes to the same thing,
" wrestlings of prayer she had wrestled with Leah ; in reality,
however, with God Himself, who seemed to have restricted His
mercy to Leah alone" {Delitzsch). It is to be noticed, that
Rachel speaks of FAohim only, whereas Leah regarded her first
four sons as the gift of Jehovah. In this variation of the names,
the attitude of the two women, not only to one another, but also
to the cause they served, is made apparent. It makes no dif-
ference whether the historian has given us the very words of the
women on the birth of their children, or, what appears more
probable, since the name of God is not introduced into the names
of the children, merely his own view of the matter as related by
him (chap. xxix. 31, xxx. 17, 22). Leah, who had been forced
upon Jacob against his inclination, and was put by him in the
background, was not only proved by the four sons, whom she
bore to him in the first years of her marriage, to be the wife
provided for Jacob by Elohim, the ruler of human destiny ; but
by the fact that these four sons formed the real stem of the
promised numerous seed, she was proved still more to be the wife
selected by Jehovah, in realization of His promise, to be the
tribe-mother of the greater part of the covenant nation. But
this required that Leah herself should be fitted for it in heart and
mind, that she should feel herself to be the handmaid of Jeho-
vah, and give glory to the covenant God for the blessing of chil-
dren, or see in her children actual proofs that Jehovah had
CHAP. XXX. 9-21. 289
accepted her and would bring to her the affection of her hus-
band. It was different with Rachel, the favourite and there-
fore high-minded wife. Jacob should give her, what God alone
could give. The faithfulness and blessing of the covenant God
were still hidden from her. Hence she resorted to such earthly
means as procuring children through her maid, and regarded
the desired result as the answer of God, and a victory in her
contest with her sister. For such a state of mind the term
Elohim, God the sovereign ruler, was the only fitting expression.
Vers. 9-13. Zilpah's Sons. — But Leah also was not con-
tent with the divine blessing bestowed upon her by Jehovah.
The means employed by Rachel to retain the favour of her hus-
band made her jealous ; and jealousy drove her to the employ-
ment of the same means. Jacob begat two sons by Zilpah her
maid. The one Leah named Gad, i.e. " good fortune," saying,
13n5 " with good fortune," according to the Chethib, for which
the Masoretic reading is "U N2? " good fortune has come," — not,
however, from any ancient tradition, for the Sept. reads iv rv^rj,
but simply from a subjective and really unnecessary conjecture,
since *U3 = " to my good fortune," sc. a son is born, gives a very
suitable meaning. The second she named Asher, i.e. the happy
one, or bringer of happiness ; for she said, ,|!^3, " to my hap-
piness, for daughters call me happy," i.e. as a mother with
children. The perfect WlBW relates to " what she had now
certainly reached" (Del). Leah did not think of God in con-
nection with these two births. They were nothing more than the
successful and welcome result of the means she had employed.
Vers. 14-21. The other children of Leah. — How
thoroughly henceforth the two wives were carried away by con-
stant jealousy of the love and attachment of their husband, is
evident from the affair of the love-apples, which Leah's son Reu-
ben, who was then four years old, found in the field and brought
to his mother. D^nvn, [xrj\.a fiavBpayopcov (LXX.), the yellow
apples of the alraun (Mandragora vernalis), a mandrake very
common in Palestine. They are about the size of a nutmeg, with
a strong and agreeable odour, and were used by the ancients, as
they still are by the Arabs, as a means of promoting child-bear-
ing. To Rachel's request that she would give her some, Leah re-
plied (ver. 15) : " Is it too little, that thou hast taken (drawn away
290 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
from me) my husband, to take also" (nnp? infin.), i.e. that thou
wouldst also take, " my sorts mandrakes ?" At length she parted
with them, on condition that Rachel would let Jacob sleep with
hertlie next night. After relating how Leah conceived again,
and Rachel continued barren in spite of the mandrakes, the writer
justly observes (ver. 17), " Elohim hearkened unto Leah" to show
that it was not from such natural means as love-apples, but
from God the author of life, that she had received such fruit-
fulness. Leah saw in the birth of her fifth son a divine reward
for having given her maid to her husband — a recompense, that
is, for her self-denial ; and she named him on that account
Issaschar, "^fc*^, a strange form, to be understood either accord-
ing to the Chethib "Ob tJ* " there is reward," or according to the
Kcri "IX* Kfe^ " he bears (brings) reward." At length she bore
her sixth son, and named him Zebidun, i.e. "dwelling;" for she
hoped that now, after God had endowed her with a good portion,
her husband, to whom she had born six sons, would dwell with
her, i.e. become more warmly attached to her. The name is
from ?3T to dwell, with ace. constr. " to inhabit," formed with a
play upon the alliteration in the word *HJ to present — two a-rra^
Xeyo/jbeva. In connection with these two births, Leah mentions
Elohim alone, the supernatural giver, and not Jehovah, the
covenant God, whose grace had been forced out of her heart by
jealousy. She afterwards bore a daughter, Dinah, who is men-
tioned simply because of the account in chap, xxxiv. ; for, ac-
cording to chap, xxxvii. 35 and xlvi. 7, Jacob had several
daughters, though they are nowhere mentioned by name.
Vers. 22-24. Birth of Joseph. — At length God gave
Rachel also a son, whom she named Joseph, Htft, i.e. taking away
(= r\?X\ cf. 1 Sam. xv. 6 ; 2 Sam. vi. 1 ; Ps. civ. 29) and add-
ing (from *)DJ), because his birth not only furnished an actual
proof that God had removed the reproach of her childlessness,
but also excited the wish, that Jehovah might add another son.
The fulfilment of this wish is recorded in chap. xxxv. 16 sqq.
The double derivation of the name, and the exchange of Elohim
for Jehovah, may be explained, without the hypothesis of a
double source, on the simple ground, that Rachel first of all
looked back at the past, and, thinking of the earthly means that
had been applied in vain for the purpose of obtaining a child,
CHAP. XXX. 22-24. 291
regarded the son as a gift of God. At the same time, the good
fortune which had now come to her banished from her heart
her envy of her sister (ver. 1), and aroused belief in that God,
who, as she had no doubt heard from her husband, had given
Jacob such great promises ; so that in giving the name, pro-
bably at the circumcision, she remembered Jehovah and prayed
for another son from His covenant faithfulness.
After the birth of Joseph, Jacob asked Laban to send him
away, with the wives and children for whom he had served him
(ver. 25). According to this, Joseph was born at the end of the
14 years of service that had been agreed upon, or seven years
after Jacob had taken Leah and (a week later) Rachel as his
wives (xxix. 21-28). Now if all the children, whose births are
given in chap. xxix. 32-xxx. 24, had been born one after another
during the period mentioned, not only would Leah have had
seven children in 7, or literally 6^ years, but there would have been
a considerable interval also, during which Rachel's maid and her
own gave birth to children. But this would have been impos-
sible ; and the text does not really state it. When we bear in
mind that the imperf. c. 1 consec. expresses not only the order of
time, but the order of thought as well, it becomes apparent that
in the history of the births, the intention to arrange them ac-
cording to the mothers prevails over the chronological order, so
that it by no means follows, that because the passage, "when
Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children," occurs after Leah
is said to have had four sons, therefore it was not till after the
birth of Leah's fourth child that Rachel became aware of her
own barrenness. There is nothing on the part of the grammar
to prevent our arranging the course of events thus. Leah's first
four births followed as rapidly as possible one after the other, so
that four sons were born in the first four years of the second period
of Jacob's service. In the meantime, not necessarily after the
birth of Leah's fourth child, Rachel, having discovered her
own barrenness, had given her maid to Jacob ; so that not only
may Dan have been born before Judah, but Naphtali also not
long after him. The rapidity and regularity with which Leah
had born her first four sons, would make her notice all the more
quickly the cessation that took place ; and jealousy of Rachel, as
well as the success of the means she had adopted, would impel
her to attempt in the same way to increase the number of her
292 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
children. Moreover, Leah herself may have conceived again
before the birth of her maid's second son, and may have given
birth to her last two sons in the sixth and seventh years of their
marriage. And contemporaneously with the birth of Leah's
last son, or immediately afterwards, Rachel may have given
birth to Joseph. In this way Jacob may easily have had eleven
sons within seven years of his marriage. But with regard to
the birth of Dinah, the expression "afterwards" (ver. 21) seems
to indicate, that she was not born during Jacob's years of ser-
vice, but during the remaining six years of his stay with Laban.
Vers. 25-43. New contract of service between
Jacob and Laban. — As the second period of seven years ter-
minated about the time of Joseph's birth, Jacob requested
Laban to let him return to his own place and country, i.e. to
Canaan. Laban, however, entreated him to remain, for he
had perceived that Jehovah, Jacob's God, had blessed him for
his sake ; and told him to fix his wages for further service. The
words, " if I have found favour in thine eyes" (ver. 27), contain
an aposiopesis, sc. then remain. V??^ " a heathen expression,
like auguraiido cognovi" {Delitzscli). vJ? I")^ thy wages, which
it will be binding upon me to give. Jacob reminded him, on the
other hand, what service he had rendered him, how Jehovah's
blessing had followed "at his foot," and asked when he should
begin to provide for his own house. But when Laban repeated
the question, what should he give him, Jacob offered to feed and
keep his flock still, upon one condition, which was founded upon
the fact, that in the East the goats, as a rule, are black or dark-
brown, rarely white or spotted with white, and that the sheep
for the most part are white, very seldom black or speckled.
Jacob required as wages, namely, all the speckled, spotted, and
black among the sheep, and all the speckled, spotted, and white
among the goats ; and offered " even to-day " to commence
separating them, so that " to-morrow " Laban might convince
himself of the uprightness of his proceedings, "ipn (ver. 32)
cannot be imperative, because of the preceding "|2|?£, but must
be infinitive : " I will go through the whole flock to-day to re-
move from thence all . . ;" and ^y' rvn signifies "what is re-
moved shall be my wages," but not everything of an abnormal
colour that .shall hereafter be found in the flock. This was no
CHAP. XXX. 25-43. 2)36
doubt intended by Jacob, as the further course of the narrative
shows, but it is not involved in the words of ver. 32. Either
the writer has restricted himself to the main fact, and omitted
to mention that it was also agreed at the same time that the
separation should be repeated at certain regular periods, and
that all the sheep of an abnormal colour in Laban's flock should
also be set aside as part of Jacob's wages; or this point was
probably not mentioned at first, but taken for granted by both
parties, since Jacob took measures with that idea to his own ad-
vantage, and even Laban, notwithstanding the frequent alteration
of the contract with which Jacob charged him (xxxi. 7, 8, and
41), does not appear to have disputed this right. — Vers. 34 sqq.
Laban cheerfully accepted the proposal, but did not leave Jacob
to make the selection. He undertook that himself, probably to
make more sure, and then gave those which were set apart as
Jacob's wages to his own sons to tend, since it was Jacob's
duty to take care of Laban's flock, and " set three days' journey
betwixt himself and Jacob" i.e. between the flock to be tended
by himself through his sons, and that to be tended by Jacob,
for the purpose of preventing any copulation between the
animals of the two flocks. Nevertheless he was overreached by
Jacob, who adopted a double method of increasing the wages
agreed upon. In the first place (vers. 37-39), he took fresh
rods of storax, maple, and walnut-trees, all of which have a
dazzling white wood under their dark outside, and peeled white
stripes upon them, |3?n f]bnft (the verbal noun instead of the
inf. abs. *]&?}), "peeling the white naked in the rods." These
partially peeled, and therefore mottled rods, he placed in the
drinking-troughs (Ctprn lit. gutters, from Ern=p"i to run, is ex-
plained by D^n Dinp^ water-troughs), to which the flock came
to drink, in front of the animals, in order that, if copulation took
place at the drinking time, it might occur near the mottled
sticks, and the young be speckled and spotted in consequence.
rnorn a rare, antiquated form for njonrn from Don, and wnsl for
*»ns1 imperf. Kal of Drv^Dftn. This artifice was founded upon
a fact frequently noticed, particularly in the case of sheep, that
whatever fixes their attention in copulation is marked upon the
young (see the proofs in Bochart, Rieroz. 1, 618, and Friedreich
zur Bibel 1, 37 sqq.). — Secondly (ver. 40), Jacob separated the
speckled animals thus obtained from those of a normal colour,
294 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
and caused the latter to feed so that the others would be con-
stantly in sight, in order that he might in this way obtain a con-
stant accession of mottled sheep. As soon as these had multi-
plied sufficiently, he formed separate flocks (viz. of the speckled
additions), "and put them not unto Laban s cattle ;" i.e. he kept
them apart in order that a still larger number of speckled ones
might be procured, through Laban's one-coloured flock having
this mottled group constantly in view. — Vers. 41, 42. He did
not adopt the trick with the rods, however, on every occasion of
copulation, for the sheep in those countries lamb twice a year,
but only at the copulation of the strong sheep (DHB'ppri the
bound ones, i.e. firm and compact), — Luther, "the spring flock ;"
naonT? inf. Pi. "to conceive it (the young) ;" — but not "in the
weakening of the sheep," i.e. when they were weak, and would
produce weak lambs. The meaning is probably this : he only
adopted this plan at the summer copulation, not the autumn ;
for, in the opinion of the ancients {Pliny, Columella), lambs that
were conceived in the spring and born in the autumn were
stronger than those born in the spring (cf. Bochart I.e. p. 582).
Jacob did this, possibly, less to spare Laban, than to avoid excit-
ing suspicion, and so leading to the discovery of his trick. — In
ver. 43 the account closes with the remark, that the man in-
creased exceedingly, and became rich in cattle (HiiH |NS many
head of sheep and goats) and slaves, without expressing appro-
bation of Jacob's conduct, or describing his increasing wealth as
a blessing from God. The verdict is contained in what follows.
Jacob's flight, and farewell of laban. — chap. xxxi.
Vers. 1-21. The flight. — Through some angry remarks
of Laban's sons with reference to his growing wealth, and the
evident change in the feelings of Laban himself towards him
(vers. 1, 2), Jacob was inwardly prepared for the termination of
his present connection with Laban ; and at the same time he re-
ceived instructions from Jehovah, to return to his home, together
with a promise of divine protection. In consequence of this, he
sent for Rachel and Leah to come to him in the field, and ex-
plained to them (vers. 4-13), how their fathers disposition had
changed towards him, and how he had deceived him in spite of
tin" service he had forced out of him, and had altered his wages ten
CHAP. XXXI. 1-21. 295
times ; but that the God of his father had stood by him, and had
transferred to him their father's cattle, and now at length had
directed him to return to his home. — Ver. 6. njrix : the original
form of the abbreviated |ftK, which is merely copied from the
Pentateuch in Ez. xiii. 11, 20, xxxiv. 17. Ver. 9. &»?*: for
\y28 as in chap, xxxii. 16, etc. — " Ten times ;" i.e. as often as pos-
sible, the ten as a round number expressing the idea of complete-
ness. From the statement that Laban had changed his wages ten
times, it is evident that when Laban observed, that among his
sheep and goats, of one colour only, a large number of mottled
young were born, he made repeated attempts to limit the original
stipulation by changing the rule as to the colours of the young,
and so diminishing J acob's wages. But when Jacob passes over
his own stratagem in silence, and represents all that he aimed at
and secured by crafty means as the fruit of God's blessing, this
differs no doubt from the account in chap. xxx. It is not a con-
tradiction, however, pointing to a difference in the sources of the
two chapters, but merely a difference founded upon actual fact,
viz. the fact that Jacob did not tell the whole truth to his wives.
Moreover self-help and divine help do not exclude one another.
Hence his account of the dream, in which he saw that the rams
that leaped upon the cattle were all of various colours, and heard
the voice of the angel of God calling his attention to what had been
seen, in the words, " I have seen all that Laban hath done to thee"
may contain actual truth ; and the dream may be regarded as a
divine revelation, which was either sent to explain to him now,
at the end of the sixth year, " that it was not his stratagem, but
the providence of God which had prevented him from falling a
victim to Laban's avarice, and had brought him such wealth"
(Delitzsch) ; or, if the dream occurred at an earlier period, was
meant to teach him, that " the help of God, without any such
self-help, could procure him justice and safety in spite of Laban's
selfish covetousness" (Kurtz). It is very difficult to decide be-
tween these two interpretations. As Jehovah's instructions to
him to return were not given till the end of his period of service,
and Jacob connects them so closely with the vision of the rams
that they seem contemporaneous, Delitzsch's view appears to
deserve the preference. But the nfc'jj in Ver. 12, " all that Laban
is doing to thee," does not exactly suit this meaning ; and we
should rather expect to find nb'j? used at the end of the time of
296 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES
service. The participle rather favours Kurtz's view, that Jacob
had the vision of the rams and the explanation from the angel
at the beginning of the last six years of service, but that in his
communication to his wives, in which there was no necessity to
preserve a strict continuity or distinction of time, he connected
it with the divine instructions to return to his home, which he
received at the end of his time of service. But if we decide in
favour of this view, we have no further guarantee for the ob-
jective reality of the vision of the rams, since nothing is said
about it in the historical account, and it is nowhere stated that
the wealth obtained by Jacob's craftiness was the result of the
divine blessing. The attempt so unmistakeably apparent in
Jacob's whole conversation with his wives, to place his dealings
with Laban in the most favourable light for himself, excites the
suspicion, that the vision of which he spoke was nothing more
than a natural dream, the materials being supplied by the three
thoughts that were most frequently in his mind, by night as wrell
as by clay, viz. (1) his own schemes and their success ; (2) the
promise received at Bethel ; (3) the wish to justify his actions
to his own conscience ; and that these were wrought up by an
excited imagination into a visionary dream, of the divine origin
of which Jacob himself may not have had the slightest doubt. —
In ver. 13 ?^n has the article in the construct state, contrary to
the ordinary rule; cf. Ges. § 110, 2b ; Ewald, § 290.
Vers. 14 sqq. The two wives naturally agreed with their
husband, and declared that they had no longer any part or in-
heritance in their father's house. For he had not treated them
as daughters, but sold them like strangers, i.e. servants. " And
he has even constantly eaten our money" i.e. consumed the pro-
perty brought to him by our service. The inf. abs. ?i3N after
the finite verb expresses the continuation of the act, and is in-
tensified by nj " yes, even." *3 in ver. 16 signifies "so that,"
as in Deut. xiv. 24, Job x. 6. — Vers. 17-19. Jacob then set
out with his children and wives, and all the property that he had
acquired in Padan-Aram, to return to his father in Canaan ;
whilst Laban had gone to the sheep-shearing, which kept him
some time from his home on account of the size of his flock.
Rachel took advantage of her father's absence to rob him of his
teraphim (pe?iates), probably small images of household gods in
human form, which were worshipped as givers of earthly pros-
CHAP. XXXI. 22-54. 297
perity, and also consulted as oracles (see my Archdologie, § 90). —
Ver. 20. " Thus Jacob deceived Laban the Syrian, in that he told
him not that he fled;'''' — 3? 333t to steal the heart (as the seat of the
understanding), like KkeTrreiv voov, and 333 with the simple accus.
persi, ver. 27, like Kkiirreiv riva, signifies to take the know-
ledge of anything away from a person, to deceive him ; — " and
passed over the river (Euphrates), and took the direction to the
mountains of Gilead."
Vers. 22-54. Laban's pursuit, reconciliation, and
covenant with Jacob. — As Laban was not told till the third
day after the flight, though he pursued the fugitives with his
brethren, i.e. his nearest relations, he did not overtake Jacob for
seven days, by which time he had reached the mountains of
Gilead (vers. 22-24). The night before he overtook them, he
was warned by God in a dream, " not to speak to Jacob from
good to bad," i.e. not to say anything decisive and emphatic for
the purpose of altering what had already occurred (vid. ver. 29,
and the note on xxiv. 50). Hence he confined himself, when they
met, " to bitter reproaches combining paternal feeling on the one
hand with hypocrisy on the other;" in which he told them that
he had the power to do them harm, if God had not forbidden
him, and charged them with stealing his gods (the teraphim). —
Ver. 26. " Like sword-booty ;" i.e. like prisoners of war (2 Kings
vi. 22) carried away unwillingly and by force. — Ver. 27. " So I
might have conducted thee with mirth and songs, with tabret and
harp" i.e. have sent thee away with a parting feast. Ver. 28.
fc'y : an old form of the infinitive for rfi&y as in chap, xlviii.
11,' 1. 20.— Ver. 29. *T ^ B* : "there is 'to God my hand"
(Mic. ii. 1 ; cf. Deut. xxviii. 32 ; Neh. v. 5), i.e. my hand
serves me as God (Hab. i. 11 ; Job xii. 6), a proverbial expres-
sion for "the power lies in my hand." — Ver. 30. "And now
thou art gone (for, if thou art gone), because thou longedst after
thy fathers house, why hast thou stolen my gods?" The mean-
ing is this : even if thy secret departure can be explained, thy
stealing of my gods cannot. — Vers. 31, 32. The first, Jacob met
by pleading his fear lest Laban should take away his daughters
(keep them back by force). " For I said:" equivalent to " for
I thought." But Jacob knew nothing of the theft ; hence he
declared, that with whomsoever he might find the gods he should
PENT. — VOL. I. D
298 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
be put to death, and told Laban to make the strictest searcli
among all the things that he had with him. " Before our brethren"
i.e. the relations who had come with Laban, as being impartial
witnesses (cf. ver. 37) ; not, as Knob el thinks, before Jacob's
horde of male and female slaves, of women and of children. —
Vers. 33 sqq. Laban looked through all the tents, but did not
find his teraphim ; for Rachel had put them in the saddle of her
camel and was sitting upon them, and excused herself to her
lord (Adonai, ver. 35), on the ground that the custom of women
was upon her. " The camel's furniture" i.e. the saddle (not
" the camel's litter :" Luther), here the woman's riding saddle,
which had a comfortable seat formed of carpets on the top of the
packsaddle. The fact that Laban passed over Rachel's seat
because of her pretended condition, does not presuppose the
Levitical law in Lev. xv. 19 sqq., according to which, any one
who touched the couch or seat of such a woman was rendered un-
clean. For, in the first place, the view which lies at the founda-
tion of this law was much older than the laws of Moses, and is
met with among many other nations (cf. Bdhr, Symbolik ii. 466,
etc.) ; consequently Laban might refrain from making further ex-
amination, less from fear of defilement, than because he regarded
it as impossible that any one with the custom of women upon
her should sit upon his gods. — Vers. 36 sqq. As Laban found
nothing, Jacob grew angry, and pointed out the injustice of his
hot pursuit and his search among all his things, but more espe-
cially the harsh treatment he had received from him in return for
the unselfish and self-denying services that he had rendered him
for twenty years. Acute sensibility and elevated self-conscious-
ness give to Jacob's words a rhythmical movement and a poetical
form. Hence such expressions as ^nx pTn « hotly pursued"
which is only met with in 1 Sam. xvii. 53 ; natSfW for naxanx « /
had to atone for it" i.e. to bear the loss ; " the Fear of Isaac" used
as a name for God, inSJ, aej3a<; = ae(3acrfj.a, the object of Isaac's
fear or sacred awe. — Ver. 40. " I have been ; by day (i.e. I have
been in this condition, that by day) heat has consumed (prostrated)
me, and cold by night" — for it is well known, that in the East
the cold by night corresponds to the heat by day ; the hotter the
day the colder the night, as a rule. — Ver. 42. " Except the God
of my father . . . had been for me, surely thou wouldst now
have sent me away empty. God has seen mine affliction and the
CHAP. XXXI. 43-51 299
labour of my hands, and last night He judged it? By the warn-
ing given to Laban, God pronounced sentence upon the matter
between Jacob and Laban, condemning the course which Laban
had pursued, and still intended to pursue, towards Jacob ; but
not on that account sanctioning all that Jacob had done to in-
crease his own possessions, still less confirming Jacob's assertion
that the vision mentioned by Jacob (vers. 11, 12) was a revelation
from God. But as Jacob had only met cunning with cunning,
deceit with deceit, Laban had no right to punish him for what
he had done. Some excuse may indeed be found for Jacob's
conduct in the heartless treatment he received from Laban, but
the fact that God defended him from Laban's revenge did not
prove it to be right. He had not acted upon the rule laid down
in Prov. xx. 22 "(cf. Rom. xii. 17 ; 1 Thess. v. 15).
Vers. 43-54. These words of Jacob " cut Laban to the
heart with their truth, so that he turned round, offered his
hand, and proposed a covenant." Jacob proceeded at once to
give a practical proof of his assent to this proposal of his father-
in-law, by erecting a stone as a memorial, and calling upon his
relations also ("his brethren," as in ver. 23, by whom Laban and
the relations who came with him are intended, as ver. 54 shows)
to gather stones into a heap, which formed a table, as is briefly
observed in ver. AGb, for the covenant meal (ver. 54). This
stone-heap was called Jegar-Sahadutha by Laban, and Galeed
by Jacob (the former is the Chaldee, the latter the Hebrew ;
they have both the same meaning, viz. " heaps of witness" x),
because, as Laban, who spoke first, as being the elder, explained,
the heap was to be a " witness between him and Jacob." The
historian then adds this explanation : " therefore they called his
name Gated" and immediately afterwards introduces a second
name, which the heap received from words that were spoken
by Laban at the conclusion of the covenant (ver. 49) : " And
Mizpah" i.e. watch, watch-place (sc. he called it), " for he
(Laban) said, Jehovah watch between me and thee ; for ice are
hidden from one another (from the face of one another), if thou
1 These words are the oldest proof, that in the native country of the
patriarchs, Mesopotamia, Aramaean or Chaldooan was spoken, and Hebrew
in Jacob's native country, Canaan; from which we may conclude that
Abraham's family first acquired the Hebrew in Canaan from the Canaauites
(Phoenicians).
300 THK FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
shalt oppress my daughters, and if thou shalt take wives to my
daughters ! No man is with us, behold God is witness between
me and thee!" (vers. 49, 50). After these words of Lnban,
which are introduced parenthetically,1 and in which he enjoined
upon Jacob fidelity to his daughters, the formation of the cove-
nant, of reconciliation and peace between them is first described,
according to which, neither of them (sive ego sive tit, as in Ex.
xix. 13) was to pass the stone-heap and memorial-stone with a
hostile intention towards the other. Of this the memorial was
to serve as a witness, and the God of Abraham and the God of
Nahor, the God of their father (Terah), would be umpire be-
tween them. To this covenant, in which Laban, according to
his polytheistic views, placed the God of Abraham upon the
same level with the God of Nahor and Terah, Jacob swore by
"the Fear of Isaac" (ver. 42), the God who was worshipped by
his father with sacred awe. He then offered sacrifices upon
the mountain, and invited his relations to eat, i.e. to partake of
a sacrificial meal, and seal the covenant by a feast of love.
The geographical names Gilead and Ramath-Mizpeh (Josh,
xiii. 20), also Mizpeli-Gilead (Judg ii. 29), sound so obviously
like Gated and Mizpah, that they are no doubt connected, and
owe their origin to the monument erected by Jacob and Laban ;
so that it was by prolepsis that the scene of this occurrence was
called " the mountains of Gilead " in vers. 21, 23, 25. By the
mount or mountains of Gilead we are not to understand the
mountain range to the south of the Jabbok (Zerka), the
present Jebel Jelaad, or Jebel es Salt. The name Gilead has a
much more comprehensive signification in the Old Testament ;
and the mountains to the south of the Jabbok are called in
Deut. iii. 12 the half of Mount Gilead; the mountains to the
1 There can be no doubt that vers. 49 and 50 bear the marks of a subse-
quent insertion. But there is nothing in the nature of this interpolation
to indicate a compilation of the history from different sources. That
Laban, when making this covenant, should have spoken of the future treat-
ment of his daughters, is a thing so natural, that there would have been
something strange in the omission. And it is not less suitable to the cir-
cumstances, that he calls upon the God of Jacob, i.e. Jehovah, to watch
in this affair. And apart from the use of the name Jehovah, which is per-
fectly suitable here, there is nothing whatever to point to a different source ;
to say nothing of the fact that the critics themselves cannot agree as to the
nature of the source supposed.
CHAP. XXXII. 1-3. 301
north of the Jabbok, the Jebel-Ajhtn, forming the other half.
In this chapter the name is used in the broader sense, and refers
primarily to the northern half of the mountains (above the
Jabbok) ; for Jacob did not cross the Jabbok till afterwards
(xxxii. 23, 24). There is nothing in the names Ramath-
Mizpeh, which Ramoth in Gilead bears in Josh. xiii. 26, and
Mhpeh- Gilead, which it bears in Judg. xi. 29, to compel us to
place Laban's meeting with Jacob in the southern portion of
the mountains of Gilead. For even if this city is to be found
in the modern Salt, and was called Ramath-Mizpeh from the
event recorded here, all that can be inferred from that is, that
the tradition of Laban's covenant with Jacob was associated in
later ages with Ramoth in Gilead, without the correctness of the
association being thereby established.
THE CAMP OP GOD AND JACOB'S WRESTLING. — CHAP. XXXII.
Vers. 1-3. The host of God. — When Laban had taken
his departure peaceably, Jacob pursued his journey to Canaan.
He was then met by some angels of God, in whom he discerned
an encampment of God ; and he called the place where they
appeared Mahanairn, i.e. double camp or double host, because
the host of God joined his host as a safeguard. This appear-
ance of angels necessarily reminded him of the vision of the
ladder, on his flight from Canaan. Just as the angels ascend-
ing and descending had then represented to him the divine
protection and assistance during his journey and sojourn in a
foreign land, so now the angelic host was a signal of the help
of God for the approaching conflict with Esau of which he
was in fear, and a fresh pledge of the promise (chap, xxviii.
15), "I will bring thee back to the land," etc. Jacob saw
it during his journey ; in a waking condition, therefore, not
internally, but out of or above himself : but whether with the
eyes of the body or of the mind (cf. 2 Kings vi. 17), cannot be
determined. Mahanairn was afterwards a distinguished city,
which is frequently mentioned, situated to the north of the
Jabbok ; and the name and remains are still preserved in the
place called Mahneh (Robinson, Pal. Appendix, p. 166), the site
of which, however, has not yet been minutely examined (see
my Comm. on Joshua, p. 259).
302 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Vers. 4-13. From this point Jacob sent messengers forward
to his brother Esau, to make known his return in such a style
of humility ("thy servant," "my lord") as was adapted to con-
ciliate him. intj (ver. 5) is the first pers.^imperf. Kal for
"inKS, from "inx to delay, to pass a time; cf. Prov. viii. 17, and
Ges. § 68, 2. The statement that Esau was already in the land
of Seir (ver. 4), or, as it is afterwards called, the field of Edom,
is not at variance with chap, xxxvi. G, and may be very naturally
explained on the supposition, that with the increase of his
family and possessions, he severed himself more and more from
his father's house, becoming increasingly convinced, as time
went on, that he could hope for no change in the blessings pro-
nounced by his father upon Jacob and himself, which excluded
him from the inheritance of the promise, viz. the future posses-
sion of Canaan. Now, even if his malicious feelings towards
Jacob had gradually softened down, he had probably never said
anything to his parents on the subject, so that Rebekah had
been unable to fulfil her promise (chap, xxvii. 45) ; and Jacob,
being quite uncertain as to his brother's state of mind, was
thrown into the greatest alarm and anxiety by the report of the
messengers, that Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men.
The simplest explanation of the fact that Esau should have had
so many men about him as a standing army, is that given by
Delitzsch; namely, that he had to subjugate the Horite popula-
tion in Seir, for which purpose he might easily have formed
such an army, partly from the Canaanitish and Ishmaelitish
relations of his wives, and partly from his own servants. His
reason for going to meet Jacob with such a company may have
been, either to show how mighty a prince he was, or with the
intention of making his brother sensible of his superior power,
and assuming a hostile attitude if the circumstances favoured it,
even though the lapse of years had so far mitigated his anger,
that he no longer seriously thought of executing the vengeance
he had threatened twenty years before. For we are warranted
in regarding Jacob's fear as no vain, subjective fancy, but as
having an objective foundation, by the fact that God endowed
him with courage and strength for his meeting with Esau,
through the medium of the angelic host and the wrestling at
the Jabbok ; whilst, on the other hand, the brotherly affection
and openness with which Esau met him, are to be attributed
CHAP. XXXII. 14-33. 303
partly to Jacob's humble demeanour, and still more to the fact,
that by the influence of God, the still remaining malice had
been rooted out from his heart. — Vers. 8 sqq. Jacob, fearing
the worst, divided his people and flocks into two camps, that if
Esau smote the one, the other might escape. He then turned
to the Great Helper in every time of need, and with an earnest
prayer besought the God of his fathers, Abraham and Isaac,
who had directed him to return, that, on the ground of the
abundant mercies and truth (cf. xxiv. 27) He had shown him
thus far, He would deliver him out of the hand of his brother,
and from the threatening destruction, and so fulfil His promises.
— Ver. 12. " For I am in fear of him, that (}3 ne) he come and
smite me, mother with children" B^1? ?J> DN is a proverbial ex-
pression for unsparing cruelty, taken from the bird which
covers its young to protect them (Deut. xxii, 6, cf. Hos. x. 14).
?y super, una cum, as in Ex. xxxv. 22.
Vers. 14-22. Although hoping for aid and safety from the
Lord alone, Jacob neglected no means of doing what might help
to appease his brother. Having taken up his quarters for the
night in the place where he received the tidings of Esau's ap-
proach, he selected from his flocks (" of that lohich came to his
hand" i.e. which he had acquired) a very respectable present of
550 head of cattle, and sent them in different detachments to
meet Esau, " as a present from his servant Jacob," who was
coming behind. The selection was in harmony with the general
possessions of nomads (cf. Job i. 3, xliii. 12), and the proportion
of male to female animals was arranged according to the agri-
cultural rule of Varro (de re rustica 2, 3). The division of the
present, " drove and drove separately" i.e. into several separate
droves which followed one another at certain intervals, was to
serve the purpose of gradually mitigating the wrath of Esau.
EtoBIBSj ver 21, to appease the countenance; B"0S Ny-'J to raise
any one's countenance, i.e. to receive him in a friendly manner.
This present he sent forward; and he himself remained the
same night (mentioned in ver. 14) in the camp.
Vers. 23-33. The wrestling with God. — The same
night, he conveyed his family with all his possessions across the
ford of the Jabbok. Jabbok is the present Wady es Zerlca (i.e.
the blue), which flows from the east towards the Jordan, and
304 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
with its deep rocky valley formed at that time the boundary be-
tween the kingdoms of Sihon at Hcshbon and Og of Baslian.
It now separates the countries of Moerad or Ajlun and Deika.
The ford by which Jacob crossed was hardly the one which he
took on his outward journey, upon the Syrian caravan-road by
Kalaat-Zerka, but one much farther to the west, between Jebel
A jinn and JebelJelaad, through which Buckingham, Burckhardt,
and Seetzen passed, and where there are still traces of walls and
buildings to be seen, and other marks of cultivation. — Ver. 25.
When Jacob was left alone on the northern side of the Jabbok,
after sending all the rest across, "there wrestled a man with him
until the breaking of the day." P?K3, an old word, which only oc-
curs here (vers. 25, 26), signifying to wrestle, is cither derived
from P?K to wind, or related to p?n to contract one's self, to
plant limb and limb firmly together. From this wrestling the
river evidently received its name of Jabbok (p*jP = p'3K*). — Yev.
26. "Andiohen lie (the unknown) saw that He did not overcome
him, lie touched his hip-socket; and his hip-socket icas ptit out of
joint (V?n from Vty as lie wrestled with him." Still Jacob
would not let Him go until He blessed him. He then said to
Jacob, " Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel (^Tl^
God's fighter, from rnb> to fight, and ^X God); for thou hast
fought ivith God and, with men, and hast prevailed.'" When
Jacob asked Him His name, He declined giving any definite
answer, and " blessed him there." He did not tell him His
name; not merely, as the angel stated to Manoah in reply to a
similar question (Judg. xiii. 18), because it was N?3 wonder, i.e.
incomprehensible to mortal man, but still more to fill Jacob's
soul with awe at the mysterious character of the whole event,
and to lead him to take it to heart. What Jacob wanted to
know, with regard to the person of the wonderful AYwstler,
and the meaning and intention of the struggle, he must
already have suspected, when he would not let Him go until
He blessed him; and it was put before him still more plainly
in the new name that was given to him with this explana-
tion, " Thou hast fought ivith Elohim ami with men, and hast
conquered" God had met him in the form of a man:
God in the angel, according to IIos. xii. 4, 5, i.e. not in a
created angel, but in the Angel of Jehovah, the visible mani-
festation of the invisible God. Our history does not speak of
CHAP. XXXII. 23-33. 305
Fehovah, or the Angel of Jehovah, but of Eloldm, for the pur-
)ose of bringing out the contrast between Gocl and the creature.
This remarkable occurrence is not to be regarded as a dream
ir an internal vision, but fell within the sphere of sensuous per-
:eption. At the same time, it was not a natural or corporeal wres-
ling, but a " real conflict of both mind and body, a work of the
pirit with intense effort of the body" {Delitzsch), in which Jacob
vas lifted up into a highly elevated condition of body and mind
esembling that of ecstasy, through the medium of the manifesta-
ion of Gocl. In a merely outward conflict, it is impossible to
:onquer through prayers and tears. As the idea of a dream or
'ision has no point of contact in the history ; so the notion, that
he outward conflict of bodily wrestling, and the spiritual conflict
vith prayer and tears, are two features opposed to one another and
piritually distinct, is evidently at variance with the meaning of
he narrative and the interpretation of the prophet Hosea. Since
Facob still continued his resistance, even after his hip had been
tut out of joint, and would not let Him go till He had blessed
lim, it cannot be said that it was not till all hope of maintaining
he conflict by bodily strength was taken from him, that he had
ecourse to the weapon of prayer. And when Hosea (xii. 4, 5)
joints his contemporaries to their wrestling forefather as an ex-
imple for their imitation, in these words, " He took his brother
>y the heel in the womb, and in his human strength he fought
vith God ; and he fought with the Angel and prevailed ; he wept
md made supplication unto Him," the turn by which the ex-
tlanatory periphrasis of Jacob's words, " I will not let Thee go
except Thou bless me," is linked on to the previous clause by HJ3
vithout a copula or vav consec, is a proof that the prophet did
lot regard the weeping and supplication as occurring after the
vrestling, or as only a second element, which was subsequently
idded to the corporeal struggle. Hosea evidently looked upon
he weeping and supplication as the distinguishing feature in the
:onflict, without thereby excluding the corporeal wrestling. At
he same time, by connecting this event with what took place at
he birth of the twins (xxv. 26), the prophet teaches that Jacob
nerely completed, by his wrestling with God, what he had
ilready been engaged in even from his mother's womb, viz. his
itriving for the birthright ; in other words, for the possession of
he covenant promise and the covenant blessing. This meaning
306 THE FIRST- BOOK OF MOSES.
is also indicated by the circumstances under which the event
took place. Jacob had wrested the blessing of the birthright from
his brother Esau ; but it was by cunning and deceit, and he had
been obliged to flee from his wrath in consequence. And now
that he desired to return to the land of promise and his father's
house, and to enter upon the inheritance promised him in his
father's blessing; Esau was coming to meet him with 400 men,
which filled him with great alarm. As he felt too weak to enter
upon a conflict with him, he prayed to the covenant God for
deliverance from the hand of his brother, and the fulfilment of
the covenant promises. The answer of God to this prayer was
the present wrestling with God, in which he was victorious
indeed, but not without carrying the marks of it all his life long
in the dislocation of his thigh. Jacob's great fear of Esau's
wrath and vengeance, which he could not suppress notwith-
standing the divine revelations at Bethel and Mahanahr., had its
foundation in his evil conscience, in the consciousness of the sin
connected with his wilful and treacherous appropriation of the
blessing of the first-born. To save him from the hand of his
brother, it was necessary that God should first meet him as an
enemy, and show him that his real opponent was God Himself,
and that he must first of all overcome Him before he could hope
to overcome his brother. And Jacob overcame God ; not with
the power of the flesh however, with which he had hitherto
wrestled for God against man (God convinced him of that by
touching his hip, so that it was put out of joint), but by the
power of faith and prayer, reaching by firm hold of God even
to the point of being blessed, by which he proved himself to be
a true wrestler of God, who fought with God and with men, i.e.
who by his wrestling with God overcame men as well. And
Avhilst by the dislocation of his hip the carnal nature of his pre-
vious wrestling was declared to be powerless and wrong, he
received in the new name of Israel the prize of victory, and at
the same time directions from God how he was henceforth to
strive for the cause of the Lord.— -By his wrestling with God,
Jacob entered upon a new stage in his life. As a sign of this,
he received a new name, which indicated, as the result of this
conflict, the nature of his new relation to God. But whilst
Abram and Sarai, from the time when God changed their names
( \\ii, 5 and 15), are always called by their new names; in the his-
CHAP. XXXIII. 1-17. 307
)iy of Jacob we find the old name used interchangeably with the
ew. " For the first two names denoted a change into a new
nd permanent position, effected and intended by the will and
romise of God; consequently the old names were entirely abo-
shed. But the name Israel denoted a spiritual state determined
y faith ; and in Jacob's life the natural state, determined by
esh and blood, still continued to stand side by side with this,
acob's new name was transmitted to his descendants, however,
ho were called Israel as the covenant nation. For as the
lessing of their forefather's conflict came down to them as a
)iritual inheritance, so did they also enter upon the duty of
reserving this inheritance by continuing in a similar conflict.
Ver. 31. The remembrance of this wonderful conflict Jacob
?rpetuated in the name which he gave to the place where it
id occurred, viz. Pniel or Pnuel (with the connecting sound ^
• *), because there he had seen Elohim face to face, and his soul
id been delivered (from death, xvi. 13). — Vers. 32, 33. With
le rising of the sun after the night of his conflict, the night
? anguish and fear also passed away from Jacob's mind, so
lat he was able to leave Pnuel in comfort, and go forward on
s journey. The dislocation of the thigh alone remained. For
lis reason the children of Israel are accustomed to avoid eating
le nervus ischiadicus, the principal nerve in the neighbourhood
' the hip, which is easily injured by any violent strain in wres-
ing. " Unto this day ;" the remark is applicable still.
Jacob's reconciliation with esau and return to
canaan. — chap. xxxiii.
Vers. 1-17. Meeting with Esau. — Vers. 1 sqq. As
icob Avent forward, he saw Esau coming to meet him with
s 400 men. He then arranged his wives and children in such
manner, that the maids with their children went first, Leah
ith hers in the middle, and Rachel with Joseph behind, thus
rining a long procession. But he himself went in front, and
et Esau with sevenfold obeisance. TOpS ^r\T\v\ does not denote
>mplete prostration, like n^"is D^QX in chap. xix. 1, but a deep
riental bow, in which the head approaches the ground, but does
)t touch it. By this manifestation of deep reverence, Jacob
>ped to win his brother's heart. He humbled himself before
308 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
him as the elder, with the feeling that he had formerly sinned
against him. Esau, on the other hand, " had a comparatively
better, but not so tender a conscience." At the sight of Jacob
he was carried away by the natural feelings of brotherly affec-
tion, and running up to him, embraced him, fell on his neck,
and kissed him ; and they both wept. The puncta extraordi-
naria above ^P'J) are probably intended to mark the word as
suspicious. They " are like a note of interrogation, questioning
the genuineness of this kiss; but without any reason" (Del.).
Even if there was still some malice in Esau's heart, it was over-
come by the humility with which his brother met him, so that
he allowed free course to the generous emotions of his heart ; all
the more, because the "roving life" which suited his nature
had procured him such wealth and power, that he was quite equal
to his brother in earthly possessions. — Vers. 5-7. When his eyes
fell upon the women and children, he inquired respecting them,
" Whom hast thou here ? " And Jacob replied, " The children
with whom Elohim hath favoured me." Upon this, the mothers
and their children approached in order, making reverential obei-
sance. |Jn with double ace. " graciously to present." Elohim :
" to avoid reminding Esau of the blessing of Jehovah, which had
occasioned his absence" (Del). — Vers. 8-11. Esau then in-
quired about the camp that had met him, i.e. the presents of
cattle that were sent to meet him, and refused to accept them,
until Jacob's urgent persuasion eventually induced him to do so.
— Ver. 10. " For therefore" sc. to be able to offer thee this pre-
sent, " have I come to see thy face, as man seeth the face of God,
and thou hast received me favourably? The thought is this : In
thy countenance I have been met with divine (heavenly) friend-
liness (cf. 1 Sam. xxix. 9, 2 Sam. xiv. 17). Jacob might say
this without cringing, since he " must have discerned the work
of God in the unexpected change in his brother's disposition
towards him, and in his brothers friendliness a reflection of the
divine." — Ver. 11. Blessing: i.e. the present, expressive of his
desire to bless, as in 1 Sam. xxv. 27, xxx. 26. nx3H : for
nxnn, as in Deut. xxxi. 29, Isa. vii. 14, etc. ; sometimes also in
verb's rfh, Lev. xxv. 21, xxvi. 34. fc W : "I hem air (not all
kinds of tilings) ; viz. as the heir of the divine promise.
\ lis. 12-15. Lastly, Esau proposed to accompany Jacob
on his journey. But Jacob politely declined not only his own
CHAP. XXXIII. 12-15. 309
company, but also the escort, which Esau afterwards offered him,
of a portion of his attendants ; the latter as being unnecessary,
the former as likely to be injurious to his flocks. This did not
spring from any feeling of distrust : and the ground assigned
was no mere pretext. He needed no military guard, " for he
knew that he was defended by the hosts of God ; " and the rea-
son given was a very good one : " My lord knoiveth that the chil-
. dren are tender, and the flocks and herds that are milking (Jioy
from TiJJ, giving milk or suckling) are upon me'' (vV) : i.e. because
they are giving milk they are an object of especial anxiety to
me ; " and if one should overdrive them a single day, all the sheep
would die." A caravan, with delicate children and cattle that
required care, could not possibly keep pace with Esau and his
horsemen, without taking harm. And Jacob could not expect
his brother to accommodate himself to the rate at which he was
travelling. For this reason he wished Esau to go on first ; and
he would drive gently behind, " according to the foot of the
cattle ('"^NPO possessions = cattle), and according to the foot of
the children" i.e. " according to the pace at which the cattle
and the children could go" (Luther). " Till I come to my lord
to Seir:" these words are not to be understood as meaning that
he intended to go direct to Seir ; consequently they were not a
wilful deception for the purpose of getting rid of Esau. Jacob's
destination was Canaan, and in Canaan probably Hebron,
where his father Isaac still lived. From thence he may have
thought of paying a visit to Esau in Seir. Whether he carried
out this intention or not, we cannot tell ; for we have not a re-
cord of all that Jacob did, but only of the principal events of
his life. We afterwards find them both meeting together as
friends at their father's funeral (xxxv. 29). Again, the attitude
of inferiority which Jacob assumed in his conversation with
Esau, addressing him as lord, and speaking of himself as servant,
was simply an act of courtesy suited to the circumstances, in
which he paid to Esau the respect due to the head of a powerful
band ; since he could not conscientiously have maintained the
attitude of a brother, when inwardly and spiritually, in spite of
Esau's friendly meeting, they were so completely separated the
one from the other. — Vers. 16, 17. Esau set off the same day
for Mount Seir, whilst Jacob proceeded to Succoth, where he
built himself a house and made succoth for his flocks, i.e. pro-
310 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
bably not bats of brandies and shrubs, but hurdles or folds made
of twigs woven together. According to Josh. xiii. 27, Succoth
was in the valley of the Jordan, and was allotted to the tribe of
Gad, as part of the district of the Jordan, tl on the other side
Jordan eastward;" and this is confirmed by Judg. viii. 4, 5,
and by Jerome (qucest. ad h. I.) : Sochoth usque hodie civitas
trans Jordanem in parte Scythopoleos. Consequently it cannot
be identified with the Sdcut on the western side of the Jordan,
to the south of Beisan, above the Wady el Mdlili. — How long
Jacob remained in Succoth cannot be determined ; but we may
conclude that he stayed there some years from the circumstance,
that by erecting a house and huts he prepared for a lengthened
stay. The motives which induced him to remain there are also un-
known to us. But when Knobel adduces the fact, that Jacob came
to Canaan for the purpose of visiting Isaac (xxxi. 18), as a reason
why it is improbable that he continued long at Succoth, he for-
gets that Jacob could visit his father from Succoth just as well
as from Shechem, and that, with the number of people and cattle
that he had about him, it was impossible that he should join and
subordinate himself to Isaac's household, after having attained
through his past life and the promises of God a position of
patriarchal independence.
Vers. 18-20. From Succoth, Jacob crossed a ford of the
Jordan, and " came in safety to the city of Sichem in the land of
Canaan." Q?ti' is not a proper name meaning " to Shalem," as
it is rendered by Luther (and Eng. Vers., Tr.) after the LXX.,
Vulg., etc. ; but an adjective, safe, peaceful, equivalent to Dw3^
" in peace," in chap, xxviii. 21, to which there is an evident
allusion. What Jacob had asked for in his vow at Bethel, before
his departure from Canaan, was now fulfilled. He had returned
ill safety " to the land of Canaan ;" Succoth, therefore, did not
belong to the land of Canaan, but must have been on the eastern
side of the Jordan. D3B> TJ?, lit. city of Shechem ; so called from
Shechem the son of the llivite prince Hamor1 (ver. 19, xxxiv.
2 sqq.), who founded it and called it by the name of his son, since
it was not in existence in Abraham's time (yid. xii. 6). Jacob
pitched his tent before the town, and then bought the piece of
ground upon which he encamped from the sons of Ilamor for 100
1 Mamortha, which according to Plin. (h. n. v. 14) was the earlier name
of Neapolis (Nablus), appears to have been a corruption of Chamor.
CHAP. XXXIV. 1-4. 311
Kesita. nb^P is not a piece of silver of the value of a lamb (ac-
cording to the ancient versions), but a quantity of silver weighed
out, of considerable, though not exactly determinable value : cf.
Ges. thes. s. v. This purchase showed that Jacob, in reliance upon
the promise of God, regarded Canaan as his own home and the
home of his seed. This piece of field, which fell to the lot of
the sons of Joseph, and where Joseph's bones were buried (Josh.
xxiv. 32), was, according to tradition, the plain which stretches
out at the south-eastern opening of the vallej^ of Shechem, where
Jacob's well is still pointed out (John iv. 6), also Joseph's grave,
a Mahometan wely (grave) two or three hundred paces to the
north (Rob. Pal. iii. 95 sqq.). Jacob also erected an altar, as
Abraham had previously done after his entrance into Canaan
(xii. 7), and called it El-elolic-Israel, " God (the mighty) is the
God of Israel" to set forth in this name the spiritual acquisition
of his previous life, and according to his vow (xxviii. 21) to give
glory to the " God of Israel " (as he called Jehovah, with refer-
ence to the name given to him at chap, xxxii. 29), for having
proved Himself to be El, a mighty God, during his long absence,
and that it mi^ht serve as a memorial for his descendants.
VIOLATION OF DINAH ; REVENGE OF SIMEON AND LEVI.
CHAP. XXXIV.
Vers. 1-4. During their stay at Shechem, Dinah, Jacob's
daughter by Leah, went out one day to see, i.e. to make the
acquaintance of the daughters of the land ; when Shechem the
Hivite, the son of the prince, took her with him and seduced
her. Dinah was probably between 13 and 15 at the time, and
had attained perfect maturity ; for this is often the case in the
East at the age of 12, and sometimes earlier. There is no ground
for supposing her to have been younger. Even if she Avas born
after Joseph, and not till the end of Jacob's 14 years' service
with Laban, and therefore was only five years old when they
left Mesopotamia, eight or ten years may have passed since then,
as Jacob may easily have spent from eight to eleven years in
Succoth, where he had built a house, and Shechem, where he
had bought " a parcel of a field." But she cannot have been
older ; for, according to chap, xxxvii. 2, Joseph was sold by his
brethren when he was 17 years old, i.e. in the 11th year after
312 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Jacob's return from Mesopotamia, as he was born in the 14th
year of Jacob's service with Laban1 (cf. xxx. 24). In the interim
between Dinah's seduction and the sale of Joseph there occurred
nothing but Jacob's journey from Shechem to Bethel and thence
to Ephratah, in the neighbourhood of which Benjamin was born
and Rachel died, and his arrival in Hebron (chap. xxxv.). This
may all have taken place within a single year. Jacob was still
at Hebron, when Joseph was sent to Shechem and sold by his
brethren (xxxvii. 14); and Isaac's death did not happen for 12
years afterwards, although it is mentioned in connection with
the account of Jacob's arrival at Hebron (chap. xxxv. 27 sqq.).
— Ver. 3. Shechem " loved the girl, and spoke to her heart;'''' i.e.
he sought to comfort her by the promise of a happy marriage,
and asked his father to obtain her for him as a wife.
Vers. 5-12. When Jacob heard of the seduction of his
daughter, "he teas silent" i.e. he remained quiet, without taking
any active proceedings (Ex. xiv. 14; 2 Sam. xix. 11) until his
sons came from the field. When they heard of it, they were
grieved and burned with wrath at the disgrace. W2tp to defile =
to dishonour, disgrace, because it was an uncircumcised man who
had seduced her. "Because he had wrought folly in Israel, by
lying with JacoV s daughter." " To work folly" was a standing
phrase for crimes against the honour and calling of Israel as
the people of God, especially for shameful sins of the flesh
(Deut. xxii. 21 ; Judg. xx. 10; 2 Sam. xiii. 2, etc.) ; but it was
also applied to other great sins (Josh. vii. 15). As Jacob had
become Israel, the seduction of his daughter was a crime against
Israel, which is called folly, inasmuch as the relation of Israel to
God was thereby ignored (Ps. xiv. 1). "And this ought not to
be done:" n^.T potentials as in chap. xx. 9. — Ilamor went to
Jacob to ask for his daughter (ver. G) ; but Jacob's sons
reached home at the same time (ver. 7), so that Ilamor spoke
to them (Jacob and his sons). To attain his object Ilamor pro-
posed a further intermarriage, unrestricted movement on their
part in the land, and that they should dwell there, trade (e/i7ro-
peveadaC), and secure possessions (N]*??. settle down securely, as in
xlvii. 27). Shechem also offered (vers. 11, 12) to give anything
1 This view is generally supported by the earlier writers, such as Deme-
trius, Petavius (Hengst. Di b.), eto.; only they reckon Dinah's age at 1G,
placing her birth in the Mth year of Jacob's service.
CHAP. XXXIV. 13-24. 313
they might ask in the form of dowry ("info not purchase-money,
but the usual gift made to the bride, vid. xxiv. 53) and presents
(for the brothers and mother), if they would only give him the
damsel.
Vers. 13-17. Attractive as these offers of the Hivite prince
and his son were, they were declined by Jacob's sons, who had
the chief voice in the question of their sister's marriage (yid.
xxiv. 50). And they were quite right; for, by accepting them,
they would have violated the sacred call of Israel and his seed,
and sacrificed the promises of Jehovah to Mammon. But they
did it in a wrong way ; for " they answered with deceit and
acted from behind" (Vl2fp.l n?"!???: "V-Fl is to be rendered dolos
struxit ; EFVN ""^ would be the expression for " giving mere
words," Hos. x. 4; vid. Ges. thes.), "because he had defiled Dinah
their sister." They told him that they could not give their sister
to an uncircumcised man, because this would be a reproach to
them ; and the only condition upon which they would consent
(IlifcO imperf. Niph. of ITiK) was, that the Shechemites should all
be circumcised ; otherwise they would take their sister and go.
Vers. 18—24. The condition seemed reasonable to the two
suitors, and by way of setting a good example, " the young man
did not delay to do this word" i.e. to submit to circumcision, "as
he was honoured before all his father's house." This is stated by
anticipation in ver. 19 ; but before submitting to the operation,
he went with his father to the gate, the place of public assembly,
to lay the matter before the citizens of the town. They knew
so well how to make the condition palatable, by a graphic de-
scription of the wealth of Jacob and his family, and by expa-
tiating upon the advantages of being united with them, that
the Shechemites consented to the proposal, ^P?1?: iniegri,
people whose bearing is unexceptionable. "And the land, behold
broad on both sides it is before them" i.e. it offers space enough
in every direction for them to wander about with their flocks.
And then the gain : " TJieir cattle, and their possessions, and their
beasts of burden . . . shall they not be ours?" njj?» is used here
for flocks and herds, nE>?? f°r beasts of burden, viz. camels and
asses (cf. Num. xxxii. 26). But notwithstanding the advantages
here pointed out, the readiness of all the citizens of Shechem
(vid. chap, xxiii. 10) to consent to be circumcised, could only be
satisfactorily explained from the fact that this religious rite was
PENT. — VOL. I. X
314 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
already customary in different nations (according to Herod. 2,
101, among the Egyptians and Colchians), as an act of religious
or priestly consecration.
Vers. 25-31. But on the third day, when the Shechemites
were thoroughly prostrated by the painful effects of the opera-
tion, Simeon and Levi (with their servants of course) fell upon
the town ntpa (i.e. while the people were off their guard, as in
Ezek. xxx. 9), slew all the males, including Hamor and Shechem,
with the edge of the sword, i.e. without quarter (Num. xxi. 24 ;
Josh. x. 28, etc.), and brought back their sister. The sons of
Jacob then plundered the town, and carried off all the cattle in
the town and in the fields, and all their possessions, including
the women and the children in their houses. By the sons of
Jacob (ver. 27) we are not to understand the rest of his sons to
the exclusion of Simeon, Levi, and even Reuben, as Delitzsch
supposes, but all his sons. For the supposition, that Simeon
and Levi were content with taking their murderous revenge,
and had no share in the plunder, is neither probable in itself nor
reconcilable with what Jacob said on his death-bed (chap. xlix.
5-7, observe "tiB* ^V) about this very crime; nor can it be inferred
from W in ver. 26, for this relates merely to their going away
from the house of the two princes, not to their leaving Shechem
altogether. The abrupt way in which the plundering is linked
on to the slaughter of all the males, without any copulative Tar,
gives to the account the character of indignation at so revolting
a crime ; and this is also shown in the verbosity of the descrip-
tion. The absence of the copula is not be accounted for by the
hypothesis that vers. 27-29 are interpolated ; for an interpolator
might have supplied the missing link by a vav, just as well as the
LXX. and other ancient translators. — Vers. 30, 31. Jacob re-
proved the originators of this act most severely for their wicked-
ness: " Ye hare brought me into trouble (conturbare), to make
me stink (an abomination) among the inhabitants of the land;
. . . and yet A (with my attendants) am a company that can be
numbered {/if. people of number, easily numbered, a small baud,
Deut. iv. 27, cf. Isa. x. 19); ami if they gather together against
me. they will slay ////■," etc. If Jacob laid stress simply upon the
consequences which this crime was likely to bring upon himself
and his house, the reason was, that this was the view most
adapted to make an impression upon his sons. For his last
CHAP. XXXV. 1-8. 315
words concerning Simeon and Levi (xlix. 5—7) are a sufficient
proof that the wickedness of their conduct was also an object of
deep abhorrence. And his fear was not groundless. Only God
in His mercy averted all the evil consequences from Jacob and
his house (chap. xxxv. 5, 6). But his sons answered, "Are they
to treat our sister like a harlot?" HEW: as in Lev. xvi. 15, etc.
Their indignation was justifiable enough ; and their seeking re-
venge, as Absalom avenged the violation of his sister on Amnon
(2 Sam. xiii. 22 sqq.), was in accordance with the habits of
nomadic tribes. In this way, for example, seduction is still
punished by death among the Arabs, and the punishment is
generally inflicted by the brothers (cf. Niebuhr, Arab. p. 39;
BurcJchardt, Syr. p. 361, and Beduinen, p. 89, 224-5). In addi-
tion to this, Jacob's sons looked upon the matter not merely as
a violation of their sister's chastity, but as a crime against the
peculiar vocation of their tribe. But for all that, the deception
they practised, the abuse of the covenant sign of circumcision
as a means of gratifying their revenge, and the extension of
that revenge to the whole town, together with the plundering of
the slain, were crimes deserving of the strongest reprobation.
The crafty character of Jacob degenerated into malicious
cunning in Simeon and Levi ; and jealousy for the exalted voca-
tion of their family, into actual sin. This event " shows us in
type all the errors into which the belief in the pre-eminence of
Israel was sure to lead in the course of history, whenever that
belief was rudely held by men of carnal minds" (0. v. Gerlach).
Jacob's return to bethel and hebron. death of
isaac. — chap. xxxv.
Vers. 1-8. Journey to Bethel. — Jacob had allowed ten years
to pass since his return from Mesopotamia, without performing
the vow which he made at Bethel when fleeing from Esau
(xxviii. 20 sqq.), although he had recalled it to mind when re-
solving to return (xxxi. 13), and had also erected an altar in
Shechem to the " God of Israel " (xxxiii. 20). He was now
directed by God (ver. 1) to go to Bethel, and there build an
altar to the God who had appeared to him on his flight from
Esau. This command stirred him up to perform what had
been neglected, viz. to put away from his house the strange
316 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
gods, which he had tolerated in weak consideration for his wives,
and which had no doubt occasioned the long neglect, and to
pay to God the vow that he had made in the day of his trouble.
He therefore commanded his house (vers. 2, 3), i.e. his wives
and children, and "all that were with him," i.e. his men and
maid-servants, to put away the strange gods, to purify them-
selves, and wash their clothes. He also buried " all the strange
gods," i.e. Rachel's teraphim (xxxi. 19), and whatever other idols
there were, with the earrings which were worn as amulets and
charms, " under the terebinth at Shechem," probably the very
tree under which Abraham once pitched his tent (xii. 6), and
which was regarded as a sacred place in Joshua's time (vid.
Josh. xxiv. 26, though the pointing is n?x there). The burial
of the idols was followed by purification through the washing of
the body, as a sign of the purification of the heart from the
defilement of idolatry, and by the putting on of clean and festal
clothes, as a symbol of the sanctification and elevation of the
heart to the Lord (Josh. xxiv. 23). This decided turning to
the Lord was immediately followed by the blessing of God.
When they left Shechem a " terror of God" i.e. a supernatural
terror, " came upon the cities round about" so that they did not
venture to pursue the sons of Jacob on account of the cruelty
of Simeon and Levi (ver. 5). Having safely arrived in Bethel,
Jacob built an altar, which he called El Bethel (God of Bethel)
in remembrance of the manifestation of God on His flight from
Esau. — Ver. 8. There Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and was
buried below Bethel under an oak, which was henceforth called
the " oak of weeping," a mourning oak, from the grief of
Jacob's house on account of her death. Deborah had either
been sent by Rebekah to take care of her daughters-in-law and
grandsons, or had gone of her own accord into Jacob's house-
hold after the death of her mistress. The mourning at her
death, and the perpetuation of her memory, are proofs that she
must have been a faithful and highly esteemed servant in
Jacob's house.
Vers. 9-15. The fresh revelation at Bethel. — After
Jacob had performed his vow by erecting the altar at Bethel,
God appeared to him again there {"again," referring to chap,
xxviii.), "on his coming out of Padan-Aram," as He had ap-
CHAP. XXXV. 9-15. 317
peared to him 30 years before on his journey thither, — though
it was then in a dream, now by daylight in a visible form (cf.
ver. 13, " God went up from him"). The gloom of that day of
fear had now brightened into the clear daylight of salvation.
This appearance was the answer, which God gave to Jacob on
his acknowledgment of Him ; and its reality is thereby estab-
lished, in opposition to the conjecture that it is merely a legend-
ary repetition of the previous vision.1 The former theophany
had promised to Jacob divine protection in a foreign land and
restoration to his home, on the ground of his call to be the
bearer of the blessings of salvation. This promise God had
fulfilled, and Jacob therefore performed his vow. On the
strength of this, God now confirmed to him the name of Israel,
which He had already given him in chap, xxxii. 28, and with it
the promise of a numerous seed and the possession of Canaan,
which, so far as the form and substance are concerned, points
back rather to chap. xvii. 6 and 8 than to chap, xxviii. 13, 14,
and for the fulfilment of which, commencing with the birth of
his sons and his return to Canaan, and stretching forward to the
most remote future, the name of Israel was to furnish him with
a pledge. — Jacob alluded to this second manifestation of God at
Bethel towards the close of his life (chap, xlviii. 3, 4) ; and Hosea
(xii. 4) represents it as the result of his wrestling with God. The
remembrance of this appearance Jacob transmitted to his descend-
ants by erecting a memorial stone, which he not only anointed with
oil like the former one in chap, xxviii. 18, but consecrated by a
drink-offering and by the renewal of the name Bethel.
1 This conjecture derives no support from the fact that the manifesta-
tions of God are ascribed to Elohim in vers. 1 and 9 sqq., although the
whole chapter treats of the display of mercy by the covenant God, i.e.
Jehovali. For the occurrence of EloMm instead of Jehovah in ver. 1 may
be explained, partly from the antithesis of God and man (because Jacob, the
man, had neglected to redeem his vow, it was necessary that he should be
reminded of it by God), and partly from the fact that there is no allusion
to any appearance of God, but the words "God said" are to be understood,
no doubt, as relating to an inward communication. The use of Elohim in vers.
9 sqq. follows naturally from the injunction of Elohim in ver. 1 ; and there
was the less necessity for an express designation of the God appearing as
Jehovah, because, on the one hand, the object of this appearance was simply
to renew and confirm the former appearance of Jehovah (xxviii. 12 sqq.),
and on the other hand, the title assumed in ver. 11, El Shaddai, refers to
chap. xvii. 1, where Jehovah announces Himself to Abram as El Shaddai.
318 THE FIHST BOOK OF MOSES.
Vers. 16-20. Birth of Benjamin and death of Rachel.
— Jacob's departure from Bethel was not in opposition to the
divine command, " dwell there " (ver. 1). For the word SB* does
not enjoin a permanent abode ; but, when taken in connection
with what follows, " make there an altar," it merely directs him
to stay there and perform his vow. As they were travelling
forward, Rachel was taken in labour not far from Ephratah.
pxn rn33 is a space, answering probably to the Persian parasang,
though the real meanino- of n"Q3 is unknown. The birth was a
difficult one. RFH?? B>i?ljl : she had difficulty in her labour (in-
stead of Piel we find Hiplril in ver. 17 with the same significa-
tion). The midwife comforted her by saying : " Fear not, for
this also is to thee a son," — a wish expressed by her when Joseph
was born (xxx. 24). But she expired ; and as she was dying,
she called him Ben-oni, "son of my pain." Jacob, however,
called him Ben-jamin, probably son of good fortune, according
to the meaning of the word jamin sustained by the Arabic, to
indicate that his pain at the loss of his favourite wife was com-
pensated by the birth of this son, wTho now completed the
number twelve. Other explanations are less simple. He buried
Rachel on the road to Ephratah, or Ephrath (probably the
fertile, from n"^), i.e. Bethlehem (bread-house), by which name
it is better known, though the origin of it is obscure. He also
erected a monument over her grave (n2>'D, o-r/)\v), on which
the historian observes, " This is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto
this day ;" a remark which does not necessarily point to a post-
Mosaic period, but which could easily have been made even 10
or 20 years after its erection. For the fact that a grave-stone
had been preserved upon the high road in a foreign land, the
inhabitants of which had no interest whatever in it, might
appear worthy of notice even though only a single decennary
had passed away.1
1 But even if this Mazzebah was really preserved till the conquest of
Canaan by the Israelites, i.e. more than 450 years, and the remark referred
to that time, it might be an interpolation by a later hand. The grave was
certainly a well-known spot in Samuel's time (1 Sam. x. 2) ; but a monit-
mentum ubi Rachel posita est uxor Jacob is first mentioned again by the
Bordeaux pilgrims of a.d. 333 and Jerome. The Kubbet Rahil (Rachel's
grave), which is now shown about half an hour's journey to the north of
Rethlehem, to the right of the road from Jerusalem to Hebron, is merely
" an ordinary Muslim wely, or tomb of a holy person, a small square build-
CHAP. XXXV. 21-29. 319
Vers. 21, 22a. Reuben's incest. — As they travelled on-
ward, Jacob pitched his tent on the other side of Migdal Eder,
where Reuben committed incest with Bilhah, his father's con-
cubine. It is merely alluded to here in the passing remark that
Israel heard it, by way of preparation for chap. xlix. 4. Migdal
Eder (flock-tower) was a watch-tower built for the protection of
flocks against robbers (cf. 2 Kings xviii. 8 ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 10,
xxvii. 4) on the other side of Bethlehem, but hardly within 1000
paces of the town, where it has been placed by tradition since
the time of Jerome. The piska in the middle of ver. 22 does
not indicate a gap in the text, but the conclusion of a parashah,
a division of the text of greater antiquity and greater correctness
than the Masoretic division.
and DEATH of Isaac. — Jacob had left his father's house with
no other possession than a staff, and now he returned with 12
sons. Thus had he been blessed by the faithful covenant God.
To show this, the account of his arrival in his father's tent at
Hebron is preceded by a list of his 12 sons, arranged according
to their respective mothers ; and this list is closed with the re-
mark, " These are the sons of Jacob, which were bom to him in
Padan-Aram" (I?'1 for VT?* ; Ges. § 143, 1), although Benjamin,
the twelfth, was not born in Padan-Aram, but on the journey
back. — Vers. 27, 28. Jacob's arrival in " Manure Kirjath-Arbah"
i.e. in the terebinth-grove of Mamre (xiii. 18) by Kirjath-Arbah
or Hebron (yid. xxiii. 2), constituted his entrance into his father's
house, to remain there as Isaac's heir. He had probably visited
his father during the ten years that had elapsed since his return
from Mesopotamia, though no allusion is made to this, since such
visits would have no importance, either in themselves or their
consequences, in connection with the sacred history. This was
not the case, however, with his return to enter upon the family
ing of stone with a dome, and -within it a tomb in the ordinary Mohammedan
form" (Rob. Pal. 1, p. 322). It has been recently enlarged by a square
court with high walls and arches on the eastern side (Rob. Bibl. Researches,
p. 357). Now although this grave is not ancient, the correctness of the
tradition, which fixes upon this as the site of Rachel's grave, cannot on the
whole be disputed. At any rate, the reasons assigned to the contrary by
Theniwt, Kurtz, and others are not conclusive.
320 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
inheritance. With this, therefore, the history of Isaac's life is
brought to a close. Isaac died at the age of 180, and was buried
by his two sons in the cave of Machpelah (chap. xlix. 31), Abra-
ham's family grave, Esau having come from Seir to Hebron to
attend the funeral of his father. But Isaac's death did not
actually take place for 12 years after Jacob's return to Hebron.
For as Joseph was 17 years old when he was sold by his brethren
(xxxvii. 2), and Jacob was then living at Hebron (xxxvii. 14),
it cannot have been more than 31 years after his flight from
Esau when Jacob returned home (cf. chap, xxxiv. 1). Now
since, according to our calculation at chap, xxvii. 1, he was 77
years old when he fled, he must have been 108 when he returned
home; and Isaac would only have reached his 168th year, as he
was 60 years old when Jacob was born (xxv. 26). Consequently
Isaac lived to witness the grief of Jacob at the loss of Joseph,
and died but a short time before his promotion in Egypt, which
occurred 13 years after he was sold (xli. 46), and only 10 years
before Jacob's removal with his family to Egypt, as Jacob was
130 years old when he was presented to Pharaoh (xlvii. 9). But
the historical significance of his life was at an end, when Jacob
returned home with his twelve sons.
IX. HISTORY OF ESAU.
Chap, xxxvi.
" Esau and Jacob shook hands once more over the corpse of
their father. Henceforth their paths diverged, to meet no more"
(Del.). As Esau had also received a divine promise (xxv. 23),
and the history of his tribe was already interwoven in the pater-
nal blessing with that of Israel (xxvii. 20 and 40), an account
is given in the book of Genesis of his growth into a nation ; and
a separate section is devoted to this, which, according to the
invariable plan of the book, precedes the tholedoth of Jacob.
The account is subdivided into the following sections, which are
distinctly indicated by their respective headings. (Compare with
these the parallel list in 1 Chron. i. 35-51.)
CHAP. XXXVI. 1-8. 321
Vers. 1-8. Esau's wives and children. His settle-
ment in the mountains of Seir. — In the heading (ver. 1)
the surname Edom is added to the name Esau, which he received
at his birth, because the former became the national designation
of his descendants. — Vers. 2, 3. The names of Esau's three wives
differ from those given in the previous accounts (chap. xxvi. 34
and xxviii. 9), and in one instance the father's name as well.
The daughter of Elon the Hittite is called Adah (the ornament),
and in chap. xxvi. 34 Basmath (the fragrant) ; the second is
called Aholibamali (probably tent-height), the daughter of Anah,
daughter, i.e. grand-daughter of Zibeon the Hivite, and in xxvi.
34, Jehudith (the praised or praiseworthy), daughter of Beeri the
Hittite ; the third, the daughter of Islmiael, is called Basmath
here and Mahalath in chap, xxviii. 9. This difference arose
from the fact, that Moses availed himself of genealogical docu-
ments for Esau's family and tribe, and inserted them without
alteration. It presents no irreconcilable discrepancy, therefore,
but may be explained from the ancient custom in the East, of
giving surnames, as the Arabs frequently do still, founded upon
some important or memorable event in a man's life, which gra-
dually superseded the other name {e.g. the name Edom, as ex-
plained in chap. xxv. 30) ; whilst as a rule the women received
new names when they were married (cf. Chardin, Hengstenberg,
Dissertations, vol. ii. p. 223-G). The different names given for
the father of Aholibamali or Judith, Hengstenberg explains by
referring to the statement in ver. 24, that Anah, the son of
Zibeon, while watching the asses of his father in the desert, dis-
covered the warm springs (of Calirrhoe), on which he founds the
acute conjecture, that from this discovery Anah received the
surname Beeri, i.e. spring-man, which so threw his original name
into the shade, as to be the only name given in the genealogical
table. There is no force in the objection, that according to ver.
25 Aholibamali was not a daughter of the discoverer of the
springs, but of his uncle of the same name. For where is it
stated that the Aholibamah mentioned in ver. 25 was Esau's
wife? And is it a thing unheard of that aunt and niece should
have the same name ? If Zibeon gave his second son the
name of his brother Anah (cf. vers. 24 and 20), why could not
his son Anah have named his daughter after his cousin, the
daughter of his father's brother? The reception of Aholibamali
322 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
into the list of the Seirite princes is no proof that she was Esau's
wife, but may be much more naturally supposed to have arisen
from the same (unknown) circumstance as that which caused
one of the seats of the Edomitish Alluphim to be called by her
name (ver. 41). — Lastly, the remaining diversity, viz. that Allah
is called a Hivite in ver. 2 and a Hittite in chap. xxvi. 34, is not
to be explained by the conjecture, that for Hivite we should read
Horite, according to ver. 20, but by the simple assumption that
Hittite is used in chap. xxvi. 34 sensu latiori for Canaan ite,
according to the analogy of Josh. i. 4, 1 Kings x. 29, 2 Kings
vii. G ; just as the two Hittite wives of Esau are called daughters
(if Canaan in chap, xxviii. 8. For the historical account, thege
neral name Hittite sufficed ; but the genealogical list required the
special name of the particular branch of the Canaanitish tribes,
viz. the Hivites. In just as simple a manner may the introduc
tion of the Hivite Zibeon among the Horites of Seir (vers. 20 and
24) be explained, viz. on the supposition that he removed to the
mountains of Seir, and there became a Horite, i.e. a troglodyte,
or dweller in a cave. — The names of Esau's sons occur again in
1 Chron. i. 35. The statement in vers. 6, 7, that Esau went
with his family and possessions, which he had acquired in
Canaan, into the land of Seir, from before his brother Jacob,
does not imply (in contradiction to chap, xxxii. 4, xxxiii. 14-1 G)
that he did not leave the land of Canaan till after Jacob's return.
The words may be understood without difficulty as meaning, that
after founding a house of his own, when his family and flocks
increased, Esau sought a home in Seir, because he knew that
Jacob, as the heir, would enter upon the family possessions, but
without waiting till he returned and actually took possession.
In the clause " ivent into the country" (ver. 6), the name Seir or
Edom (cf. ver. 1G) must have dropt out, as the words "into
the country" convey no sense when standing by themselves.
Vers. 9-14 (cf. 1 Chron. i. 36, 37). Esau's sons and
grandsons as FATHERS OF tribes. — Through them he be-
came the father of Edom, i.e. the founder of the Edomitish
nation on the mountains of Seir. Mount Seir is the mountain-
ous region between the Dead Sea and the Elanitic Gulf, the
northern half of which is called Jebdl (Te^aX)]vi]) by the
Arabs, the southern half, Sherah (Rob. Pal. ii. 552). — In the
CHAP. XXXVI. 9-14. 323
ease of two of the wives of Esau, who bore only one son each,
the tribes were founded not by the sons, rJut by the grandsons;
but in that of Aholibamah the three sons wrere the founders.
Among the sons of Eliphaz we find Amalek, whose mother was
Timna, the concubine of Eliphaz. He was the ancestor of the
Amalekites, who attacked the Israelites at Horeb as they came
out of Egypt under Moses (Ex. xvii. 8 sqq.), and not merely Qf
a mixed tribe of Amalekites and Edomites, belonging to the
supposed aboriginal Amalekite nation. For the Arabic leger-d
of Amlik as an aboriginal tribe of Arabia is far too recent, con-
fused, and contradictory to counterbalance the clear testimony
of the record before us. The allusion to the fields of the
Amalekites in chap. xiv. 7 does not imply that the tribe was
in existence in Abraham's time, nor does the expression " first
of the nations," in the saying of Balaam (Num. xxiv. 20), repre-
sent Amalek as the aboriginal or oldest tribe, but simply as the
first heathen tribe by which Israel was attacked. The Old
Testament says nothing of any fusion of Edomites or Horites
with Amalekites, nor does it mention a double Amalek (cf.
Hengstenberg, Dessertations 2, 247 sqq., and Kurtz, History
i. 122, 3, ii. 240 sqq.).1 If there had been an Amalek previous
to Edom, with the important part which they took in opposition
to Israel even in the time of Moses, the book of Genesis would
not have omitted to give their pedigree in the list of the na-
tions. At a very early period the Amalekites separated from the
other tribes of Edom and formed an independent people, having
their headquarters in the southern part of the mountains of
Judah, as far as Kadesh (xiv. 7 ; Num. xiii. 29, xiv. 43, 45),
but, like the Bedouins, spreading themselves as a nomad tribe
over the whole of the northern portion of Arabia Petrasa, from
Havilah to Shur on the border of Egypt (1 Sam. xv. 3, 7,
xxvii. 8); whilst one branch penetrated into the heart of
Canaan, so that a range of hills, in what was afterwards the
inheritance of Ephraim, bore the name of mountains of the
Amalekites (Judg. xii. 15, cf. v. 14). Those who settled in
Arabia seem also to have separated in the course of time into
several branches, so that Amalekite hordes invaded the land of
i The occurrence of " Timna and Amalek " in 1 Chron. i. 36, as co-
ordinate with the sons of Eliphaz, is simply a more concise form of saying
"and from Timna, Amalek."
32 I THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Israel in connection sometimes with the Midianites and the sons
of the East (the Arabs, Judg. vi. 3, vii. 12), and at other times
with the Ammonites (Judg. iii. 13). After they had been I
defeated by Saul (1 Sam. xiv. 48, xv. 2 sqq.), and frequently
chastised by David (1 Sam. xxvii. 8, xxx. 1 sqq. ; 2 Sam.
viii. 12), the remnant of them was exterminated under Heze-
kiah by the Simeonites on the mountains of Seir (1 Chron. iv.
42, 43).
Vers. 15-19. The tribe-princes who descended from
Esau. — D^px was the distinguishing title of the Edomite
and Ilorite phylarchs ; and it is only incidentally that it is
applied to Jewish heads of tribes in Zech. ix. 7, and xii. 5.
It is probably derived from ^X or Cs?*?, equivalent to ninsp'b,
families (1 Sam. x. 19; Mic. v. 2), — the heads of the families,
i.e. of the principal divisions, of the tribe. The names of
these Alluplnm are not names of places, but of persons — of
the three sons and ten grandsons of Esau mentioned in vers.
9—14 ; though Knobel would reverse the process and interpret
the whole geographically. — In ver. 16 Korah has probably been
copied by mistake from ver. 18, and should therefore be erased,
as it really is in the Samar. Codex.
Vers. 20-30 (parallel, 1 Chron. i. 38-42). Descendants
of Seir the Horite ; — the inhabitants of the land, or
pre-Edomitish population of the country." — " 77ie Ilorite :"
6 TpG>y\o&vT7]<;, the dweller in caves, which abound in the
mountains of Edom (vid. Rob. Pal. ii. p. 424). The Horites,
who had previously been an independent people (xiv. 6), were
partly exterminated and partly subjugated by the descendants
of Esau (Deut. ii. 12, 22). Seven sons of Seir are given as
tribe-princes of the Horites, who are afterwards mentioned as
Alluphim (vers. 29, 30), also their sons, as well as two daughters,
Tirana (ver. 22) and Aholibamah (ver. 25), who obtained no-
toriety from the fact that two of the headquarters of Edomitish
tribe-princes bore their names (vers. 40 and 41). Timna was
probably the same as the concubine of Eliphaz (ver. 12); but
Aholibamah was not the wife of Esau (cf. ver. 2). — There are
a few instances in which the names in this list differ from those
in the Chronicles. But they are differences which either con-
CHAP. XXXVI. 31-39. 325
sist of variations in form, or have arisen from mistakes in
copying.1 Of Anah, the son of Zibeon, it is related (ver. 24),
that as he fed the asses of his father in the desert, he " found
D9'.n;" — not "he invented mules," as the Talmud, Luther, etc.,
render it, for mules are E^.").?, and NXio does not mean to invent;
but he discovered agues calidce (Vulg.), either the hot sulphur
springs of Calirrlioe in the Wady Zerha Maein (vid. x. 19), or
those in the Wady el Ahsa to the S.E. of the Dead Sea, or
those in the Wady Hamad between Kerek and the Dead Sea.2 —
Ver. 30. " These are the princes of the Horites according to their
princes" i.e. as their princes were individually named in the
land of Seir. ? in enumerations indicates the relation of the
individual to the whole, and of the whole to the individual.
Vers. 31-39 (parallel, 1 Chron. i. 43-50). The kings in
the land OF Edom : before the children of Israel had a king.
It is to be observed in connection with the eisrht kino-s men-
tioned here, that whilst they follow one another, that is to say,
1 Knobel also undertakes to explain these names geographically, and to
point them out in tribes and places of Arabia, assuming, quite arbitrarily
and in opposition to the text, that the names refer to tribes, not to persons,
although an incident is related of Zibeon's son, which proves at once that
the list relates to persons and not to tribes ; and expecting his readers to
believe that not only are the descendants of these troglodytes, who were
exterminated before the time of Moses, still to be found, but even their
names may be traced in certain Bedouin tribes, though more than 3000
years have passed away ! The utter groundlessness of such explanations,
which rest upon nothing more than similarity of names, may be seen
in the association of Shdbal with Syria Sobal (Judith iii. 1), the name
used by the Crusaders for Arabia tertia, i.e. the southernmost district
below the Dead Sea, which was conquered by them. For notwithstand-
ing the resemblance of the name Shobal to Sobal, no one could seriously
think of connecting Syria Sobal with the Horite prince Shobal, unless
he was altogether ignorant of the apocryphal origin of the former name,
which first of all arose from the Greek or Latin version of the Old Testa-
ment, and in fact from a misunderstanding of Ps. Ix. 2, where, instead
H31V D"1X, Aram Zobah, we find in the LXX. Ivpta, 2o/3«x, and in the Vulg.
Syria et Sobal.
2 It is possible that there may be something significant in the fact that
it was " as he was feeding his father's asses," and that the asses may have
contributed to the discovery ; just as the whirlpool of Karlsbad is said to
have been discovered through a hound of Charles IV., which pursued a stag
into a hot spring, and attracted the huntsmen to the spot by its howling.
320 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
one never comes to the throne till his predecessor is dead, yet
the son never succeeds the father, but they all belong to different
families and places, and in the case of the last the statement that
" he died" is wanting. From this it is unquestionably obvious,
that the sovereignty was elective ; that the kings were chosen
by the phylarchs ; and, as Isa. xxxiv. 12 also shows, that they
lived or reigned contemporaneously with these. The contem-
poraneous existence of the AUuphim and the kings may also be
inferred from Ex. *xv. 15 as compared with Num. xx. 14 sqq.
Whilst it was with the king of Edom that Moses treated re-
specting the passage through the land, in the song of Moses it
is the princes who tremble with fear on account of the miracu-
lous passage through the Red Sea (cf. Ezek. xxxii. 29). Lastly,
this is also supported by the fact, that the account of the seats
of the phylarchs (vers. 40-43) follows the list of the kings.
This arrangement would have been thoroughly unsuitable if the
monarchy had been founded upon the ruins of the phylarchs
(vid. Hengstenberg, tit sup. pp. 238 sqq.). Of all the kings of
Edom, not one is named elsewhere. It is true, the attempt has
been made to identify the fourth, Hadad (ver. 35), with the
Edomite Hadad who rose up against Solomon (1 Kings xi. 14) ;
but without foundation. The contemporary of Solomon was of
royal blood, but neither a king nor a pretender ; our Hadad, on
the contrary, was a king, but he was the son of an unknown
Hadad of the town of Avith, and no relation to his predecessor
Husham of the country of the Temanites. It is related of him
that he smote Midian in the fields of Moab (ver. 35) ; from which
Hengstenberg (pp. 235-G) justly infers that this event cannot
have been very remote from the Mosaic age, since we find the
Midianites allied to the Moabites in Num. xxii. ; whereas after-
wards, viz. in the time of Gideon, the Midianites vanished from
history, and in Solomon's days the fields of Moab, being Israel-
itish territory, cannot have served as a field of battle for the
Midianites and Moabites. — Of the tribe-cities of these kings
only a few can be identified now. Bozrah, a noted city of the
Edomites (Isa. xxxiv. 6, lxiii. 1, etc.), is still to be traced in el
Buseireh, a village with ruins in Jebal (Rob. Pal. ii. 571). — The
land of the Temanite (ver. 34) is a province in northern Idunuea,
witli a city, Teman, which has not yet been discovered; accord-
ing to Jerome, ijuimjue inilllbus from Petra. — Rehoboth of the
CHAP. XXXVI. 31-39. 327
river (ver. 37) can neither be the Idumsean Robntha, nor er
Ruheibeh in the wady running towards el Arish, but must be
sought for on the Euphrates, say in Errachabi or Rachabeh, near
the mouth of the Chaboras. Consequently Saul, who spra*hg
from Eehoboth, was a foreigner. — Of the last king, Hadar (ver.
39 ; not Hadad, as it is written in 1 Chron. i. 50), the wife, the
mother-in-law, and the mother are mentioned : his death is not
mentioned here, but is added by the later chronicler (1 Chron.
i. 51). This can be explained easily enough from the simple
fact, that at the time when the table was first drawn up, Hadad
was still alive and seated upon the throne. In all probability,
therefore, Hadad was the king of Edom, to whom Moses applied
for permission to pass through the land (Num. xx. 14 sqq.).1 At
any rate the list is evidently a record relating to the Edomitish
kings of a pre-Mosaic age. But if this is the case, the heading,
" These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before
there reigned any king over the children of Israel" does not refer
to the time when the monarchy was introduced into Israel under
Saul, but was written with the promise in mind, that kings
should come out of the loins of Jacob (xxxv. 11, cf. xvii. 4 sqq.),
and merely expresses the thought, that Edom became a kingdom
at an earlier period than Israel. Such a thought was by no
means inappropriate to the Mosaic age. For the idea, " that
1 If this be admitted ; then, on the supposition that this list of kings
contains all the previous kings of Edom, the introduction of monarchy
among the Edomites can hardly have taken place more than 200 years be-
fore the exodus ; and, in that case, none of the phylarchs named in vers.
15-18 can have lived to see its establishment. For the list only reaches to
the grandsons of Esau, none of whom are likely to have lived more than
100 or 150 years after Esau's death. It is true we do not know when Esau
died ; but 413 years elapsed between the death of Jacob and the exodus,
and Joseph, who was born in the 91st year of Jacob's life, died 54 years
afterwards, i.e. 359 years before the exodus. But Esau was married in his
40th year, 37 years before Jacob (xxvi. 34), and had sons and daughters
before his removal to Seir (ver. 6). Unless, therefore, his sons and grand-
sons attained a most unusual age, or were maiTied remarkably late in life,
his grandsons can hardly have outlived Joseph more than 100 years. Now,
if we fix their death at about 250 years before the exodus of Israel from
Egypt, there remains from that point to the arrival of the Israelites at the
land of Edom (Num. xx. 14) a period of 290 years ; amply sufficient for the
reigns of eight kings, even if the monarchy was not introduced till after the
death of the last of the phylarchs mentioned in vers. 15-18.
328 THE FIRST HOOK OF MOSES.
Israel was destined to grow into a kingdom with monarchs of
his own family, was a hope handed down to the age of Moses,
which the long residence in Egypt was well adapted to foster"
Vers. 40-43 (parallel, 1 Chron. i. 51-54). Seats of the
TRIBE-PRINCES OF ESAU ACCORDING TO THEIR FAMILIES.
That the names which follow are not a second list of Edomitish
tribe-princes (viz. of those who continued the ancient constitu-
tion, with its hereditary aristocracy, after Hadar's death), but
merely relate to the capital cities of the old phylarchs, is evident
from the expression in the heading, "After their places, by their
names" as compared with ver. 43, "According to their habita-
tions in the land of their possession." This being the substance
and intention of the list, there is nothing surprising in the fact,
that out of the eleven names only two correspond to those given
in vers. 15-19. This proves nothing more than that only two
of the capitals received their names from the princes who cap-
tured or founded them, viz. Timnah and Kenaz. Neither of
these has been discovered yet. The name Aholihamah is derived
from the Horite princess (ver. 25) ; its site is unknown. Elah
is the port Aila (vid. xiv. 6). Pinon is the same as Phunon, an
encampment of the Israelites (Num. xxxiii. 42-3), celebrated
for its mines, in which many Christians were condemned to
labour under Diocletian, between Petra and Zoar, to the north-
east of Wady Musa. Teman is the capital of the land of the
Temanites (ver. 34). Mxbzar is supposed by Knobel to be Petra ;
but this is called Selah elsewhere (2 Kings xiv. 7). Magdiel and
Irani cannot be identified. The concluding sentence, " This is
Esau, the father (founder) of Edom" (i.e. from him sprang the
great nation of the Edomites, with its princes and kings, upon
the mountains of Seir), not only terminates this section, but
prepares the way for the history of Jacob, which commences
with the following chapter.
CHAP. XXXVII. -L. 329
X. HISTOEY OF JACOB.
Chap, xxxvii.-l.
its substance and character.
The history (tholedoth) of Isaac commenced with the found-
ing of his house by the birth of his sons (p. 266); but Jacob
was abroad when his sons were born, and had not yet entered
into undisputed possession of his inheritance. Hence his tho-
ledoth only commence with his return to his father's tent and
his entrance upon the family possessions, and merely embrace
the history of his life as patriarch of the house which he founded.
In this period of his life, indeed, his sons, especially Joseph and
Judah, stand in the foreground, so that " Joseph might be de-
scribed as the moving principle of the following history." But
for all that, Jacob remains the head of the house, and the centre
around whom the whole revolves. This section is divided by
the removal of Jacob to Egypt, into the period of his residence in
Canaan (chap, xxxvii.-xlv.), and the close of his life in Goshen
(chap, xlvi.-l.). The first period is occupied with the events
which prepared the way for, and eventually occasioned, his mi-
gration into Egypt. The way was prepared, directly by the sale
of Joseph (chap, xxxvii.), indirectly by the alliance of Judah with
the Canaanites (chap, xxxviii.), which endangered the divine
call of Israel, inasmuch as this showed the necessity for a tem-
porary removal of the sons of Israel from Canaan. The way
was opened by the wonderful career of Joseph in Egypt, his
elevation from slavery and imprisonment to be the ruler over
the whole of Egypt (xxxix.-xli.). And lastly, the migration was
occasioned by the famine in Canaan, which rendered it necessary
for Jacob's sons to travel into Egypt to buy corn, and, whilst it
led to Jacob's recovery of the son he had mourned for as dead,
furnished an opportunity for Joseph to welcome his family into
Egypt (chap, xlii.-xlv.). The second period commences with
the migration of Jacob into Egypt, and his settlement in the
land of Goshen (chap, xlvi.-xlvii. 27). It embraces the patri-
arch's closing years, his last instructions respecting his burial in
Canaan (chap, xlvii. 28-31), his adoption of Joseph's sons, and
PENT. VOL. I. Y
330 TIIH FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
the blessing given to his twelve sons (chap, xlix.), and extends
to his burial and Joseph's death (chap. 1.).
Now if we compare this period of the patriarchal history with
the previous ones, viz. those of Isaac and Abraham, it differs
from them most in the absence of divine revelations — in the fact,
that from the time of the patriarch's entrance upon the family
inheritance to the day of his death, there was only one other
occasion on which God appeared to him in a dream, viz. in Beer-
sheba, on the border of the promised land, when he had prepared
to go with his whole house into Egypt: the God of his father
then promised him the increase of his seed in Egypt into a great
nation, and their return to Canaan (xlvi. 2-4). This fact may
be easily explained on the ground, that the end of the divine
manifestations had been already attained ; that in Jacob's house
with his twelve sons the foundation was laid for the development
of the promised nation ; and that the time had come, in which
the chosen family was to grow into a nation, — a process for which
they needed, indeed, the blessing and protection of God, but no
special revelations, so long at least as this growth into a nation
took its natural course. That course was not interrupted, but
rather facilitated by the removal into Egypt. But as Canaan
had been assigned to the patriarchs as the land of their pilgrim-
age, and promised to their seed for a possession after it had
become a nation ; when Jacob was compelled to leave this land,
his faith in the promise of God might have been shaken, if God
had not appeared to him as he departed, to promise him His pro-
tection in the foreign land, and assure him of the fulfilment of
His promises. More than this the house of Israel did not need to
know, as to the way by which God would lead them, especially as
Abraham had already received a revelation from the Lord (xv.
13-1 G).
In perfect harmony with the character of the time thus com-
mencing for Jacob-Israel, is the use of the names of God in
this last section of Genesis: viz. the fact, that whilst in chap,
xxxvii. (the sale of Joseph) the name of God is not met with ::t
all, in chap, xxxviii. and xxxix. we find the name of Jehovah
nine times and Elohim only once (xxxix. 0), and that in circum-
stances in which Jehovah would have been inadmissible ; and
after chap. si. 1, the name Jehovah almost entirely disappears,
occurring only once in chap, xl.-l. (chap. xlix. 18, where Jacob
CHAP. XXXVII -L. 33 L
uses it), whereas Elohim is used eighteen times and Ha-Elohim
seven, not to mention such expressions as "your God" (xliii.
23), or " the God of his, or your father" (xlvi. 1, 3). So long
as the attention is confined to this numerical proportion of
Jehovah, and Elohim or Ha-Elohim, it must remain " a difficult
enigma." But when we look at the way in which these names
are employed, we find the actual fact to be, that in chap, xxxviii.
and xxxix. the writer mentions God nine times, and calls Him
Jehovah, and that in chap, xl.-l. he only mentions God twice,
and then calls Him Elohim (xlvi. 1, 2), although the God of
salvation, i.e. Jehovah, is intended. In every other instance in
which God is referred to in chap, xl.-l., it is always by the per-
sons concerned : either Pharaoh (xli. 38, 39), or Joseph and his
brethren (xl. 8, xli. 16, 51, 52, etc., Elohim; and xli. 25, 28,
32, etc.-, Ha-Elohim), or by Jacob (xlviii. 11, 20, 21, Elohim).
Now the circumstance that the historian speaks of God nine
times in chap, xxxviii. xxxix. and only twice in chap, xl.-l. is
explained by the substance of the history, which furnished no
particular occasion for this in the last eleven chapters. But the
reason why he does not name Jehovah in chap, xl.-l. as in chap,
xxxviii. -xxxix., but speaks of the " God of his (Jacob's) father
Isaac," in chap. xlvi. 1, and directly afterwards of Elohim (ver.
2), could hardly be that the periphrasis "the God of his father"
seemed more appropriate than the simple name Jehovah, since
Jacob offered sacrifice at Beersheba to the God who appeared to
his father, and to whom Isaac built an altar there, and this God
(Elohim) then appeared to him in a dream and renewed the pro-
mise of his fathers. As the historian uses a periphrasis of the
name Jehovah, to point out the internal connection between what
Jacob did and experienced at Beersheba and what his father ex-
perienced there ; so Jacob also, both in the blessing with which
he sends his sons the second time to Egypt (xliii. 14) and at the
adoption of Joseph's sons (xlviii. 3), uses the name El Shaddai,
and in his blessings on Joseph's sons (xlviii. 15) and on Joseph
himself (xlix. 24, 25) employs rhetorical periphrases for the name
Jehovah, because Jehovah had manifested Himself not only to
him (xxxv. 11, 12), but also to his fathers Abraham and Isaac
(xvii. 1 and xxviii. 3) as El Shaddai, and had proved Himself
to be the Almighty, " the God who fed him," " the Mighty One
of Jacob," "the Shepherd and Rock of Israel." In these set
332 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
discourses the titles of God here mentioned were unquestionably
more significant and impressive than the simple name Jehovah.
And when Jacob speaks of Elohim only, not of Jehovah, in chap,
xlviii. 11, 20, 21, the Elohim in vers. 11 and 21 may be easily
explained from the antithesis of Jacob to both man and God,
and in ver. 20 from the words themselves, which contain a com-
mon and, so to speak, a stereotyped saying. Wherever the
thought required the name Jehovah as the only appropriate one,
there Jacob used this name, as chap. xlix. 18 will prove. But
that name would have been quite unsuitable in the mouth of
Pharaoh in chap. xli. 38, 39, in the address of Joseph to the
prisoners (xl. 8) and to Pharaoh (xli. 16, 25, 28, 32), and in his
conversation with his brethren before he made himself known
(xlii. 18, xliii. 29), and also in the appeal of Judah to Joseph as
an unknown Egyptian officer of state (xli v. 16). In the mean-
time the brethren of Joseph also speak to one another of Elohim
(xlii. 28) ; and Joseph not only sees in the birth of his sons merely
a gift of Elohim (xli. 51, 52, xlviii. 9), but in the solemn mo-
ment in which he makes himself known to his brethren (xlv. 5-9)
he speaks of Elohim alone : " Elohim did send me before you
to preserve life " (ver. 5) ; and even upon his death-bed he says,
" I die, and Elohim will surely visit you and bring you out of
this land" (1. 24, 25). But the reason of this is not difficult to
discover, and is no other than the following : Joseph, like his
brethren, did not clearly discern the ways of the Lord in the
wonderful changes of his life ; and his brethren, though they
felt that the trouble into which they were brought before the
unknown ruler of Egypt was a just punishment from God for
their crime against Joseph, did not perceive that by the sale of
their brother they had sinned not only against Elohim (God the
Creator and Judge of men), but against Jehovah the covenant
God of their father. They had not only sold their brother, but
in their brother they had cast out a member of the seed promised
and given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from the fellowship of
the chosen family, and sinned against the God of salvation and
His promises. But this aspect of their crime was still hidden
from them, so that they could not speak of Jehovah. In the
same way, Joseph regarded the wonderful course of his life as a
divine arrangement for the preservation or rescue of his family ,
and he was so far acquainted with the promises of God, that he
CHAP. XXXVII.-L. 333
regarded it as a certainty, that Israel would be led out of Egypt,
especially after the last wish expressed by Jacob. But this did
not involve so full and clear an insight into the ways of Jehovah,
as to lead Joseph to recognise in his own career a special appoint-
ment of the covenant God, and to describe it as a gracious work
of Jehovah.1
The disappearance of the name Jehovah, therefore, is to be
explained, partly from the fact that previous revelations and
acts of grace had given rise to other phrases expressive of the
idea of Jehovah, which not only served as substitutes for this
name of the covenant God, but in certain circumstances were
much more appropriate ; and partly from the fact that the sons
of Jacob, including Joseph, did not so distinctly recognise in
their course the saving guidance of the covenant God, as to be
able to describe it as the work of Jehovah. This imperfect in-
sight, however, is intimately connected with the fact that the
direct revelations of God had ceased ; and that Joseph, although
chosen by God to be the preserver of the house of Israel and
the instrument in accomplishing His plans of salvation, was
separated at a very early period from the fellowship of his
father's house, and formally naturalized in Egypt, and though
endowed with the supernatural power to interpret dreams, was
not favoured, as Daniel afterwards was in the Chaldasan court,
with visions or revelations of God. Consequently we cannot
place Joseph on a level with the three patriarchs, nor assent to
the statement, that " as the noblest blossom of the patriarchal
life is seen in Joseph, as in him the whole meaning of the
patriarchal life is summed up and fulfilled, so in Christ we see
the perfect blossom and sole fulfilment of the whole of the Old
Testament dispensation" {Kurtz, Old Covenant ii. 95), as being
1 The very fact that the author of Genesis, who wrote in the light of the
further development and fuller revelation of the ways of the Lord with
Joseph and the whole house of Jacob, represents the career of Joseph as a
gracious interposition of Jehovah (chap, xxxix.), and yet makes Joseph him-
self speak of Elohim as arranging the whole, is by no means an unimpor-
tant testimony to the historical fidelity and truth of the narrative ; of which
further proofs are to be found in the faithful and exact representation of
the circumstances, manners, and customs of Egypt, as Hengstenlerg has
proved in his Egypt and the Books of Moses, from a comparison of these
accounts of Joseph's life with ancient documents and monuments connected
with this land.
334 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
either correct or scriptural, so far as the first portion is concerned.
For Joseph was not a medium of salvation in the same way as
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was indeed a benefactor, not
only to his brethren and the whole house of Israel, but also to
the Egyptians ; but salvation, i.e. spiritual help and culture, he
neither brought to the Gentiles nor to the house of Israel. In
Jacob's blessing he is endowed with the richest inheritance of
the first-born in earthly things ; but salvation is to reach the
nations through Judah. We may therefore without hesitation
look upon the history of Joseph as a " type of the pathway of
the Church, not of Jehovah only, but also of Christ, from low-
liness to exaltation, from slavery to liberty, from suffering to
glory" (Delitzsch) ; Ave may also, so far as the history of Israel
is a type of the history of Christ and His Church, regard the
life of Joseph, as believing commentators of all centuries have
done, as a type of the life of Christ, and use these typical traits
as aids to progress in the knowledge of salvation ; but that we
may not be seduced into typological trifling, we must not over-
look the fact, that neither Joseph nor his career is represented,
either by the prophets or by Christ and His apostles, as typical
of Christ, — in anything like the same way, for example, as the
guidance of Israel into and out of Egypt (Hos. xi. 1 cf. Matt. ii.
15), and other events and persons in the history of Israel.
SALE OF JOSEPH INTO EGYPT. — CHAP. XXXVII.
Vers. 1-4. The statement in ver. 1, which introduces the
tlioledoth of Jacob, " And Jacob dwelt in the land of his father s
pilgrimage, in the land of Canaan" implies that Jacob had now
entered upon his father's inheritance, and carries on the patri-
archal pilgrim-life in Canaan, the further development of which
was determined by the wonderful career of Joseph. This strange
and eventful career of Joseph commenced when he was 17 years
old. The notice of his age at the commencement of the narra-
tive which follows, is introduced with reference to the principal
topic in it, viz. the sale of Joseph, which was to prepare the way,
according to the wonderful counsel of God, for the fulfilment
of the divine revelation to Abraham respecting the future his-
tory of his seed (xv. 13 sqq.). While feeding the flock with his
brethren, and, as he was young, with the sons of Bilhah and
CHAP. XXXYII. 5-11. 335
Zilpah, who were nearer his age than the sons of Leah, he
brought an evil report of them to his father (njn intentionally
indefinite, connected with Brizn without an article). The words
"ijtt frvim, " and he a lad" are subordinate to the main clause :
they are not to be rendered, however, "he was a lad with the
sons," but, " as he was young, he fed the flock with the sons of
Bilhah and Zilpah." — Ver. 3. " Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph
more than all his (other) sons, because he was born in his old age"
as the first-fruits of the beloved Rachel (Benjamin was hardly
a year old at this time). And he made him B^BB npro : a long
coat with sleeves (^ltwv darpayaXeio^, Aqu., or acrrpwyaXcoTo^,
LXX. at 2 Sam. xiii. 18, tunica talaris, Vulg. ad Sam.), i.e. an
upper coat reaching to the wrists and ankles, such as noblemen
and kings' daughters wore, not " a coat of many colours" (" bun-
ter Rock," as Luther renders it, from the yyrwva ttolkIXov, turti-
cam polymitam, of the LXX. and Vulgate). This partiality
made Joseph hated by his brethren ; so that they could not
" speak peaceably unto him" i.e. ask him how he was, offer him
the usual salutation, " Peace be with thee."
Vers. 5-11. This hatred was increased when Joseph told
them of two dreams that he had had : viz. that as they were
binding sheaves in the field, his sheaf "stood and remained
standing," but their sheaves placed themselves round it and
bowed down to it ; and that the sun (his father), and the moon
(his mother, "not Leah, but Rachel, who was neither forgotten
nor lost"), and eleven stars (his eleven" brethren) bowed down
before him. These dreams pointed in an unmistakeable way to
the supremacy of Joseph ; the first to supremacy over his bre-
thren, the second over the whole house of Israel. The repe-
tition seemed to establish the thing as certain (cf. xli. 32); so
that not only did his brethren hate him still more " on account
of his dreams and words" (ver. 8), i.e. the substance of the
dreams and the open interpretation of them, and become jealous
and envious, but his father gave him a sharp reproof for the
second, though he preserved the matter, i.e. retained it in his
memory ("IBB5 LXX. 8ieTrjp7]o-e, cf. avveryjpei, Luke ii. 19). The
brothers with their ill-will could not see anything in the dreams
but the suggestions of his own ambition and pride of heart ; and
even the father, notwithstanding his partiality, was grieved by
the second dream. The dreams are not represented as divine
33G THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
revelations ; yet they are not to be regarded as pure flights of
fancy from an ambitious heart, but as the presentiments of deep
inward feelings, which were not produced without some divine
influence being exerted upon Joseph's mind, and therefore were of
prophetic significance, though they were not inspired directly by
God, inasmuch as the purposes of God were still to remain hidden
from the eyes of men for the saving good of all concerned.
Yers. 12-24. In a short time the hatred of Joseph's brethren
grew into a crime. On one occasion, when they were feeding
their flock at a distance from Hebron, in the neighbourhood
of Shechem (Nablus, in the plain of Mukhnah), and Joseph
who was sent thither by Jacob to inquire as to the welfare
(shalom, valetudo) of the brethren and their flocks, followed them
to Dothain or Dothan, a place 12 Roman miles to the north of
Samaria (Sebaste), towards the plain of Jezreel, they formed the
malicious resolution to put him, " this dreamer," to death, and
throw him into one of the pits, i.e. cisterns, and then to tell (his
father) that a wild beast had slain him, and so to bring his
dreams to nought. — Vers. 21 sqq. Reuben, who was the eldest
son, and therefore specially responsible for his younger brother,
opposed this murderous proposal. He dissuaded his brethren
from killing Joseph (C;33 'D niin), and advised them to throw him
" into this pit in the desert" i.e. into a dry pit that was near.
As Joseph would inevitably perish even in that pit, their malice
was satisfied ; but Reuben intended to take Joseph out again,
and restore him to his father. As soon, therefore, as Joseph
arrived, they took off his coat with sleeves and threw him into
the pit, which happened to be dry.
Vers. 25-3G. Reuben had saved Joseph's life indeed by his
proposal ; but his intention to send him back to his father was
frustrated. For as soon as the brethren sat down to eat, after
the deed was performed, they saw a company of Ishmaelites
from Gilead coming along the road which leads from Beisaxi
past Jenin (Rob. Pal. iii. 155) and through the plain of Dothan
to the great caravan road that runs from Damascus by Lejun
{Legio, Megiddo), Ramleh, and Gaza to Egypt (Rob. iii. 27,
178). The caravan drew near, laden with spices: viz. 1"IN33,'
gum-tragacanth ; ^>*, balsam, for which Gilead was celebrated
(xliii. 11 ; Jer. viii. 22, xlvi. 11) ; and bS, ladanum, the fragrant
resin of the cistus-rose. Judah seized the opportunity to pro-
CHAP. XXXVII. 25-36.
337
pose to his brethren to sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites. " What
profit have toe,"1 he said, " that ive slay our brother and conceal his
blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites ; and our hand,
let it not lay hold of him (sc. to slay him), for he is our brother,
our fleshy Reuben wished to deliver Joseph entirely from his
brothers' malice. Judah also wished to save his life, though not
from brotherly love so much as from the feeling of horror,
which, was not quite extinct within him, at incurring the guilt of
fratricide ; but he would still like to get rid of him, that his
dreams might not come true. Judah, like his brethren, was
probably afraid that their father might confer upon Joseph the
rights of the first-born, and so make him lord over them. His
proposal was a welcome one. When the Arabs passed by, the
brethren fetched Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ish-
maelites, who took him into Egypt. The different names given
to the traders — viz. Ishmaelites (vers. 25, 27, and 28b), Midianites
(ver. 28a), and Medauites (ver. 36) — do not show that the account
has been drawn from different legends, but that these tribes
were often confounded, from the fact that they resembled one
another so closely, not only in their common descent from Abra-
ham (xvi. 15 and xxv. 2), but also in the similarity of their mode
of life and their constant change of abode, that strangers could
hardly distinguish them, especially when they appeared not as
tribes but as Arabian merchants, such as they are here described
as being : " Midianitish men, merchants." That descendants of
Abraham should already be met with in this capacity is by no
means strange, if we consider that 150 years had passed by since
Ishmael's dismissal from his father's house, — a period amply suffi-
cient for his descendants to have grown through marriage into
a respectable tribe. The price, " twenty (sc. shekels) of silver"
was the price which Moses afterwards fixed as the value of a
boy between 5 and 20 (Lev. xxvii. 5), the average price of a
slave being 30 shekels (Ex. xxi. 32). But the Ishmaelites
naturally wanted to make money by the transaction. — Vers. 29
sqq. The business was settled in Reuben's absence; probably
because his brethren suspected that he intended to rescue Joseph.
When he came to the pit and found Joseph gone, he rent his
clothes (a sign of intense grief on the part of the natural man)
and exclaimed : " The boy is no more, and I, whither shall Igo /"
— how shall I account to his father for his disappearance ! But
338 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
the brothers were at no loss; they dipped Joseph's coat in the
blood of a goat and sent it to his father, with the message, " We
have found this ; see whether it is thy sorts coat or not" Jacob
recognised the coat at once, and mourned bitterly in mourning
clothes (p&) for his son, whom he supposed to have been de-
voured and destroyed by a wild beast (^"jb sptj) inf. abs. of Kal
before Pual, as an indication of undoubted certainty), and re-
fused all comfort from his children, saying, " No (^ immo,
elliptical : Do not attempt to comfort me, for) I will go down
mourning into Sheol to my son." Sheol denotes the place where
departed souls are gathered after death ; it is an infinitive form
from ?xa> to demand, the demanding, applied to the place which
inexorably summons all men into its shade (cf. Prov. xxx. 15,
16; Isa. v. 14; Hab. ii. 5). How should his sons comfort him,
when they were obliged to cover their wickedness with the sin of
lying and hypocrisy, and when even Reuben, although at first
beside himself at the failure of his plan, had not courage enough
to disclose his brothers' crime? — Ver. 36. But Joseph, while his
father was mourning, was sold by the Midianites to Potiphar,
the chief of Pharaoh's trabantes, to be first of all brought low,
according to the wonderful counsel of God, and then to be
exalted as ruler in Egypt, before whom his brethren would bow
down, and as the saviour of the house of Israel. The name
Potiphar is a contraction of Poti Pherah (xli. 50) ; the LXX.
render both TJere^py^ or Ilere^pi] (rid. xli. 50). DnD (eunuch)
is used here, as in 1 Sam. viii. 15 and in most of the passages of
the Old Testament, for courtier or chamberlain, without regard
to the primary meaning, as Potiphar was married. " Captain of
the guard'''' {lit. captain of the slaughterers, i.e. the executioners),
commanding officer of the royal body-guard, who executed the
capital sentences ordered by the king, as was also the case with
the Chaldeans (2 Kings xxv. 8; Jer. xxxix. 9, Hi. 12. See my
Commentary on the Books of Kings, vol. i. pp. 35, 36, Eng. Tr.).
judah's marriage and children, his incest avith
thamar. — chap. xxxviii.
The following sketch from the life of Judah is intended to
point out the origin of the three leading families of the future
princely tribe in Israel, and at the same time to show in what
chap, xxxviii. 1-11. 339
danger the sons of Jacob would have been of forgetting the
o so
sacred vocation of their race, through marriages with Canaan-
itish women, and of perishing in the sin of Canaan, if the mercy
of God had not interposed, and by leading Joseph into Egypt
prepared the way for the removal of the whole house of Jacob
into that land, and thus protected the family, just as it was ex-
panding into a nation, from the corrupting influence of the
manners and customs of Canaan. This being the intention of
the narrative, it is no episode or interpolation, but an integral
part of the early history of Israel, which is woven here into the
history of Jacob, because the events occurred subsequently to
the sale of Joseph.
Yers. 1-11. About this time, i.e. after the sale of Joseph,
while still feeding the flocks of Jacob along with his brethren
(xxxvii. 26),1 Judah separated from them, and went down (from
Hebron, xxxvii. 14, or the mountains) to Adullam, in the low-
land (Josh. xv. 35), into the neighbourhood of a man named
Hirah. " Be pitched (his tent, xxvi. 25) up to a man of Adul-
lam" i.e. in his neighbourhood, so as to enter into friendly inter-
course with him. — Vers. 2 sqq. There Judah married the daugh-
ter of Shuah, a Canaanite, and had three sons by her : Ger (*W),
Onan, and Shelah. The name of the place is mentioned when
the last is born, viz. Chezib or Achzib (Josh. xv. 44; Micah i. 14),
1 As the expression " at that time" does not compel us to place Judah 's
marriage after the sale of Joseph, many have followed Augustine (qusset. 123),
and placed it some years earlier. But this assumption is rendered extremely
improbable, if not impossible, by the fact that Judah was not merely acci-
dentally present when Joseph was sold, but was evidently living with his
brethren, and had not yet set up an establishment of his own ; whereas he
had settled at Adullam previous to bis marriage, and seems to have lived
there up to the time of the birth of the twins by Thamar. Moreover, the
23 years which intervened between the taking of Joseph into Egypt and the
migration of Jacob thither, furnish s]iace enough for all the events recorded
in this chapter. If we suppose that Judah, who was 20 years old when
Joseph was sold, went to Adullam soon afterwards and married there, his
three sons might have been born four or five years after Joseph's captivity.
And if his eldest son was born about a year and a half after the sale of
Joseph, and he married him to Thamar when he was 15 years old, and gave
her to his second son a year after that, Onan's death would occur at least
five years before Jacob's removal to Egypt ; time enough, therefore, both for
the generation and birth of the twin-sons of Judah by Thamar, and for
Judah's two journeys into Egypt with his brethren to buy corn. (See chap,
xlvi. 8 sqq.)
340 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
in the southern portion of the lowland of Judah, that the de-
scendants of Shelah might know the birth-place of their ancestor.
This was unnecessary in the case of the others, who died child-
less.— Vers. 6 sqq. When Ger was grown up, according to ancient
custom (cf. xxi. 21, xxxiv. 4) his father gave him a wife, named
Thamar, probably a Canaanite, of unknown parentage. But
Ger was soon put to death by Jehovah on account of his wicked-
ness. Judah then wished Onan, as the brother-in-law, to marry
the childless widow of his deceased brother, and raise up seed,
i.e. a family, for him. But as he knew that the first-born son
would not be the founder of his own family, but would perpe-
tuate the family of the deceased and receive his inheritance, he
prevented conception when consummating the marriage by spill-
ing the semen. HipS DAB^ " destroyed to the ground (i.e. let it
fall upon the ground), so as not to give seed to his brother"
(fro for nn only here and Num. xx. 21). This act not only be-
trayed a want of affection to his brother, combined with a despi-
cable covetousness for his possession and inheritance, but was
also a sin against the divine institution of marriage and its object,
and was therefore punished by Jehovah with sudden death.
The custom of levirate marriage, which is first mentioned here,
and is found in different forms among Indians, Persians, and
other nations of Asia and Africa, was not founded upon a divine
command, but upon an ancient tradition, originating probably
in Chaldea. It was not abolished, however, by the Mosaic law
(Deut. xxv. 5 sqq.), but only so far restricted as not to allow it to
interfere with the sanctity of marriage ; and with this limitation
it was enjoined as a duty of affection to build up the brother's
house, and to preserve his family and name (see my Bibl. Archii-
ologie, § 108). — Ver. 11. The sudden death of his two sons so
soon after their marriage with Thamar made Judah hesitate to
give her the third as a husband also, thinking, very likely, accord-
ing to a superstition which we find in Tubit iii. 7 sqq., that either
she herself, or marriage with her, had been the cause of her hus-
bands' deaths. He therefore sent her away to her father's house,
with the promise that he would give her his youngest son as soon
as he had grown up ; though he never intended it seriously, "for
he thought lest (|2 "ups*? i.e. he was afraid that) he also might die
like his brethren."
CHAP. XXXVIII. 12-00. 341
saw that Shelah had grown up and yet was not given to her as
a husband, she determined to procure children from Judah
himself, who had become a widower in the meantime ; and his
going to Timnath to the sheep-shearing afforded her a good
opportunity. The time mentioned (" the days multiplied," i.e.
a long time passed by) refers not to the statement which follows,
that Judah' s wife died, but rather to the leading thought of the
verse, viz. Judah' s going to the sheep-shearing. DHIM : he
comforted himself, i.e. he ceased to mourn. Timnath is not the
border town of Dan and Judah between Beth-shemesh and
Ekron in the plain (Josh. xv. 10, xix. 43), but Timnali on the
mountains of Judah (Josh. xv. 57, cf. Eob. Pal. ii. 343, note),
as the expression " went up " shows. The sheep-shearing was a
fete with shepherds, and was kept with great feasting. Judah
therefore took his friend Hirah with him; a fact noticed in
ver. 12 in relation to what follows. — Vers. 13, 14. As soon as
Thamar heard of Judah's going to this feast, she took off her
widow's clothes, put on a veil, and sat down, disguised as a
harlot, by the gate of Enayim, where Judah would be sure to
pass on his return from Timnath. Enayim was no doubt the
same as Enam in the lowland of Judah (Josh. xv. 34). — Vers.
15 sqq. When Judah saw her here and took her for a harlot,
he made her an offer, and gave her his signet-ring, with the
band (/^) by which it was hung round his neck, and his staff,
as a pledge of the young buck-goat which he offered her. Thev
were both objects of value, and were regarded as ornaments in
the East, as Herodotus (i. 195) has shown with regard to the
Babylonians (see my Bibl. Arch. 2, 48). He then lay with her,
and she became pregnant by him. — Vers. 19 sqq. After this
had occurred, Thamar laid aside her veil, put on her widow's
dress again, and returned home. When Judah, therefore, sent
the kid by his friend Hirah to the supposed harlot for the
purpose of redeeming his pledges, he could not find her, and
was told, on inquiring of the inhabitants of Enayim, that there
was no HKHp there. ^Vlpr) : lit. " the consecrated," i.e. the
hierodule, a woman sacred to Astarte, a goddess of the Canaan-
ites, the deification of the generative and productive principle of
nature ; one who served this goddess by prostitution (yid. Deut.
xxiii. 18). This was no doubt regarded as the most respectable de-
signation for public prostitutes in Canaan. — Vers. 22, 23. When
342 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
his friend returned with the kid and reported his want of success,
Judah resolved to leave his pledges with the girl, that he might
not expose himself to the ridicule of the people by any further
inquiries, since he had done his part towards keeping his promise.
" Let her take them (i.e. keep the signet-ring and staff) for her-
self, that ice may not become a (an object of) ridiculed The
pledges were unquestionably of more value than a young he-
goat.
Vers. 24-26. About three months afterwards (CWfp prob.
for V7VD with the prefix ft) Judah was informed that Thamar
had played the harlot and was certainly (Hj?D) with child. He
immediately ordered, by virtue of his authority as head of the
tribe, that she should be brought out and burned. Thamar was
regarded as the affianced bride of Shelah, and was to be punished
as a bride convicted of a breach of chastity. But the Mosaic
law enjoined stoning in the case of those who were affianced
and broke their promise, or of newly married women who were
found to have been dishonoured (Deut. xxii. 20, 21, 23, 24) ;
and it was only in the case of the whoredom of a priest's
daughter, or of carnal intercourse with a mother or a daughter,
that the punishment of burning was enjoined (Lev. xxi. 9 and
xx. 14). Judah's sentence, therefore, was more harsh than the
subsequent law ; whether according to patriarchal custom, or
on other grounds, cannot be determined. When Thamar was
brought out, she sent to Judah the tilings which she had kept
as a pledge, with this message : " By a man to whom these belony
am I icith child: look carefully therefore to whom this signet-ring,
and band, and stick belony." Judah recognised the things as
his own, and was obliged to confess, " She is more in the right
than I ; for therefore (sc. that this might happen to me, or that
it might turn out so ; on |?vjp3 see chap, xviii. 5) have I not
given her to my son Shelah." In passing sentence upon Thamar,
Judah had condemned himself. Ilis sin, however, did not con-
sist merely in his having given way to his lusts so far as to lie
with a supposed public prostitute of Canaan, but still more in
the fact, that by breaking his promise to give her his son Shelah
as her husband, he had caused his daughter-in-law to practise
this deception upon him, just because in his heart he blamed
her for the early and sudden deaths of his elder sons, whereas
the real cause of the deaths which had so grieved his paternal
CHAP. XXXVIII. 27-30. 343
heart was the wickedness of the sons themselves, the main-
spring of which was to be found in his own marriage with a
Canaanite in violation of the patriarchal call. And even if the
sons of Jacob were not unconditionally prohibited from marry-
ing the daughters of Canaanites, Judah's marriage at any rate
had borne such fruit in his sons Ger and Onan, as Jehovah the
covenant God was compelled to reject. But if Judah, instead
of recognising the hand of the Lord in the sudden death of his
sons, traced the cause to Thamar, and determined to keep her
as a childless widow all her life long, not only in opposition to
the traditional custom, but also in opposition to the will of God
as expressed in His promises of a numerous increase of the seed
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; Thamar had by no means acted
rightly in the stratagem by which she frustrated his plan, and
sought to procure from Judah himself the seed of which he was
unjustly depriving her, though her act might be less criminal
than Judah's. For it is evident from the whole account, that
she was not driven to her sin by lust, but by the innate desire
for children (otl Se 7racSo7roua<i yapiv, kcu ov (f>t\.7]^ovla<; tovto
6 Od/xap ifi7]^avi]<raTO, — Theodoret) ; and for that reason she
was more in the right than Judah. Judah himself, however,
not only saw his guilt, but he confessed it also ; and showed both
by this confession, and also by the fact that he had no further
conjugal intercourse with Thamar, an earnest endeavour to
conquer the lusts of the flesh, and to guard against the sin into
which he had fallen. And because he thus humbled himself,
God gave him grace, and not only exalted him to be the chief
of the house of Israel, but blessed the children that were be-
gotten in sin.
Vers. 27-30. Thamar brought forth twins; and a circum-
stance occurred at the birth, which does occasionally happen
when the children lie in an abnormal position, and always im-
pedes the delivery, and which was regarded in this instance as
so significant that the names of the children were founded upon
the fact. At the birth ^~]^_ " there was a hand" i.e. a hand
came out (t?1 as in Job xxxvii. 10, Prov. xiii. 10), round which
the midwife tied a scarlet thread, to mark this as the first-born.
— Ver. 29. " And it came to pass, when it (the child) drew hack
its hand (^;03 for tfBto nrra as in chap. xl. 10), behold its
brother came out. Then she (the midwife) said, What a breach
314 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
I
hast thou made for thy part ? Upon thee the breach ;" i.e. tliou
bearest the blame of the breach. pQ signifies not rupturam
perinoei, but breaking through by pressing forward. From that
lie received the name of Perez (breach, breaker through). Then
the other one with the scarlet thread came into the world, and
was named Zerah (JT1T exit, rising), because he sought to appear
first, whereas in fact Perez was the first-born, and is even placed
before Zerah in the lists in chap. xlvi. 12, Num. xxvi. 20.
Perez was the ancestor of the tribe-prince Nahshon (Num. ii.
3), and of king David also (Ruth iv. 18 sqq. ; 1 Chron. ii. 5
sqq.). " Through him, therefore, Thamar has a place as one of
the female ancestors in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
JOSEPH IN POTIPHAK S HOUSE, AND IN PRISON. — CHAP. XXXIX.
Vers. 1-18. In Potiphar's house. — Potiphar had bought
him of the Ishmaelites, as is repeated in ver. 1 for the purpose
of resuming the thread of the narrative ; and Jehovah was
with him, so that he prospered in the house of his Egyptian
master. Tpyn trx : a man who has prosperity, to whom God
causes all that he undertakes and does to prosper. When
Potiphar perceived this, Joseph found favour in his eyes, and
became his servant, whom he placed over his house (made
manager of his household affairs), and to whom he entrusted
all his property (tfnJ*-b ver. 4 = iH'* "itrx-b vers. 5, G). This
confidence in Joseph increased, when he perceived how the
blessing of Jehovah (Joseph's God) rested upon his property
in the house and in the field ; so that now " lie left to Joseph
everything that he had, and did not trouble himself i^N (with or
near him) about anything but his own eadng." — Vers. Qb sqq.
Joseph was handsome in form and feature ; and Potiphar's
wife set her eyes upon the handsome young man, and tried
to* persuade him to lie with her. But Joseph resisted the adul-
terous proposal, referring to the unlimited confidence which
his master had placed in him. lie (Potiphar) was not greater
in that house than he, and had given everything over to
him except her, because she was his wife. "How could he so
abuse this confidence, as to do this great wickedness and sin
against God !" — Vers. 10 sqq. But after she had repeated her
enticements day after day without success, "it came to pass at
CHAP. XXXIX. 19-23. 345
that time (TW D13PI3 for the more usual njn Di»3 (chap. 1. 20), lit.
about this day, i.e. the day in the writer's mind, on which the
thing to be narrated occurred) that Joseph came into his house to
attend to his duties, and there were none of the house-servants
ivithin? And she laid hold of him by his garment and entreated
him to lie with her; but he left his garment in her hand and
fled from the house. — Vers. 13-18. When this daring assault
upon Joseph's chastity had failed, on account of his faithfulness
and fear of God, the adulterous woman reversed the whole affair,
and charged him with an attack upon her modesty, in order that
she might have her revenge upon him and avert suspicion from
herself. She called her house-servants and said, " See, he (her
husband, whom she does not think worth naming) has brought
us a Hebrew man ("no epitheton ornans to Egyptian ears: xliii.
32") to mock us (pnv to show his wantonness; us, the wife and
servants, especially the female portion): he came in unto me to
lie with me ; and I cried with a loud voice . . . and he left his
garment by me." She said v^X "by my side," not "in my
hand," as that would have shown the true state of the case.
She then left the garment lying by her side till the return of
Joseph's master, to whom she repeated her tale.
Vers. 19-23. Joseph in pkison. — Potiphar was enraged
at what he heard, and put Joseph into the prison where ("10?
for Dt£> "IB>K} xl. 3 like xxxv. 13) the king's prisoners (state-
prisoners) were confined. "in'Dn TPS : lit. the house of enclosure,
from -iriDj to surround or enclose (o^vpco/jba, LXX.) ; the state-
prison surrounded by a wall. This was a very moderate pun-
ishment. For according to Diod. Sic. (i. 78) the laws of the
Egyptians were iriicpoX irepl roov yvvcufcwv vojioi. An attempt at
adultery was to be punished with 1000 blows, and rape upon a
free woman still more severely. It is possible that Potiphar was
not fully convinced of his wife's chastity, and therefore did not
place unlimited credence in what she said.1 But even in that
1 Credibile est aliquod fvisse indicium, quo Josephum innocentem esse
Pntiphari constiteret ; neque enim servi vita tanti erat ut ei parceretur in tarn
gravi delicto. Sed licet innocuum, in carcere tamen detinebat, ut uxoris
honori et suo consuleret (Ckricus). The chastity of Egyptian women has
been in bad repute from time immemorial (Diod. Sic. i. 59 ; Herod, ii. 111).
Even in the middle ages the Fatimite Hakim thought it necessary to adopt
PENT. — VOL. I. Z
346 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
case it was the mercy of the faithful covenant God, which now
as before (xxxvii. 20 sqq.) rescued Joseph's life.
Vers. 21—23. In the prison itself Jehovah was with Joseph,
procuring him favour in the eyes of the governor of the prison,
so that he entrusted all the prisoners to his care, leaving every-
thing that they had to do, to be done through him, and not
troubling himself about anything that was in his hand, i.e. was
committed to him, because Jehovah made all that he did to
prosper. " The keeper" was the governor of the prison, or
superintendent of the gaolers, and was under Potiphar, the
captain of the trabantes and chief of the executioners (chap,
xxxvii. 3G).
THE PRISONERS' DREAMS AND JOSEPH'S INTERPRETATION. —
CHAP. XL.
Vers. 1-8. The head cup-bearer and head baker had com
mitted crimes against the king of Egypt, and were imprisoned
in " the prison of the house of the captain of the trabantes, the
prison ivhere Joseph himself was confined;'' the state-prison, ac-
cording to Eastern custom, forming part of the same building as
the dwelling-house of the chief of the executioners. From a
regard to the exalted position of these two prisoners, Potiphar
ordered Joseph to wait upon them, not to keep watch over them;
for nx 1p3 does not mean to appoint as guard, but to place bv
the side of a person. — Ver. 5. After some time (" days," ver. 4,
as in iv. 3), and on the same night, these two prisoners had each
a peculiar dream, " each one according to the interpretation of his
dream" i.e. each one had a dream corresponding to the inter-
pretation which specially applied to him. On account of these
dreams, which seemed to them to have some bearing upon their
fate, and, as the issue proved, were really true omens of it,
Joseph found them the next morning looking anxious, and asked
them the reason of the trouble which was depicted upon their
countenances. — Ver. 8. On their replying that they had dreamed,
and there was no one to interpret the dream, Joseph reminded
them first of all that "interpretations are God's," come from
severe measures against their immorality (Bar-Hebrsei, chron. p. 217), ami
at the present day, according to Bnrchhardt (arab. Sprichworter, pp. 222,
227), chastity is "a great rarity" among women of every rank in Cairo.
CHAP. XL. 9-19 347
God, are His gift; at the same time he bade them tell him their
dreams, from a consciousness, no doubt, that he was endowed
with this divine gift.
Vers. 9-15. The cup-bearer gave this account: "In my dream,
behold there was a vine before me, and on the vine three branches;
and it was as though blossoming, it shot forth its blossom (HJH
either from the hapax 1. fjj— nX3j or from H2H with the fem. ter-
mination resolved into the 3 pers. suff. : Ewald, § 257d), its
clusters ripened into grapes. And PharaoJis cup was in my
hand; and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup,
and gave the cup into PharaoJis hand" In this dream the office
and duty of the royal cup-bearer were represented in an unmis-
takeable manner, though the particular details must not be so
forced as to lead to the conclusion, that the kings of ancient
Egypt drank only the fresh juice of the grape, and not fermented
wine as well. The cultivation of the vine, and the making and.
drinking of wine, among the Egyptians, are established beyond
question by ancient testimony and the earliest monuments, not-
withstanding the statement of Herodotus (2, 77) to the contrary
(see Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books of Moses, pp. 13 sqq.). —
Vers. 12 sqq. Joseph then gave this interpretation : The three
branches were three days, in which time Pharaoh would restore
him to his post again (" lift up his head," i.e. raise him from his
degradation, send and fetch him from prison, 2 Kings xxv. 27).
And he added this request (ver. 14) : " Only think of me, as it
goes well with thee, and show favour to me . . . for I teas stolen
(i.e. carried away secretly and by force; I did not abscond because
of any crime) out of the land of the Hebrews (the land where the
Ibrim live) ; and here also I have done nothing (committed no
crime) for which they should put me into the hole" "112 : the cell,
applied to a prison as a miserable hdle, because often dry cess-
pools were used as prisons.
Vers. 16-19. Encouraged by this favourable interpretation,
the chief baker also told his dream : "I too, . . . in my dream:
behold, baskets of white bread upon my head, and in the top basket
all kinds of food for Pharaoh, pastry ; and the birds ate it out of
the basket from my head." In this dream, the carrying of the
baskets upon the head is thoroughly Egyptian ; for, according
to Herod. 2, 35, the men in Egypt carry burdens upon the
head, the women upon the shoulders. And, according to the
348 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
monuments, the variety of confectionary was very extensive (cf.
Ilengst. p. 27). In the opening words, u I too" the baker points
to the resemblance between his dream and the cup-bearer's.
The resemblance was not confined to the sameness of the num-
bers— three baskets of white bread, and three branches of the
vine, — but was also seen in the fact that his official duty at the
court was represented in the dream. But instead of Pharaoh
taking the bread from his hand, the birds of heaven ate it out of
the basket upon his head. And Joseph gave this interpretation :
" The three baskets signify three days ; within that time Pharaoh
will tale away thy head from thee ("lift up thy head," as in
ver. 13, but with T?W? " away from thee," i.e. behead thee), and
hang thee on the stake (thy body after execution ; vid. Dent. xxi.
22, 23), and the birds will eat thy flesh from off thee." However
simple and close this interpretation of the two dreams may ap-
pear, the exact accordance with the fulfilment was a miracle
wrought by God, and showed that as the dreams originated in
the instigation of God, the interpretation was His inspiration also.
Vers. 20-23. Joseph's interpretations were fulfilled three
days afterwards, on the king's birth-day. rnpn DV : the day of
being born ; the inf. Hoph. is construed as a passive with the
accus. obj., as in chap. iv. 18, etc. Pharaoh gave his servants
a feast, and lifted up the heads of both the prisoners, but in very
different ways. The cup-bearer was pardoned, and reinstated
in his office ; the baker, on the other hand, was executed. — Ver.
23. But the former forgot Joseph in his prosperity, and did
nothing to procure his liberation.
PHARAOIl's DREAMS AND JOSEPH'S EXALTATION. — CHAP. XLI.
Vers. 1-36. Pharaoh's dreams and thetr interpreta-
tion.— Two full years afterwards (DVpj accus. " in days," as in
chap. xxix. 14) Pharaoh had a dream. He was standing by the
Nile, and saw seven fine fat cows ascend from the Nile and feed
in the Nile-grass ('inx an Egyptian word) ; and behind them seven
others, ugly (according to ver. 19, unparalleled in their ugliness),
lean pfc>3 T)S$n "thin in flesh," for which we find in ver. 19 rrtTl
" fallen away," and "lfc>3 nip-} withered in flesh, fleshless), which
placed themselves beside those fat ones on the brink of the Nile
:md devoured them, without there being any effect to show that
CHAP. XLI. 1-36. 349
tliey had eaten them. He then awoke, but fell asleep again and
had a second, similar dream : seven fat (ver. 22, full) and fine
ears grew upon one blade, and were swallowed up by seven
thin (ver. 23, " and hardened") ones, which were blasted by the
east wind (&!£ i.e. the S.E. wind, Chamsin, from the desert of
Arabia). — Ver. 7. " Then Pharaoh awoke, and behold it was a
dream." The dream was so like reality, that it was only when
he woke that he perceived it was a dream. — Ver. 8. Being
troubled about this double dream, Pharaoh sent the next morning
for all the scribes and wise men of Egypt, to have it interpreted.
CSp-in, from P^n a stylus (pencil), are the iepoypa/u,/jiaTec<;, men
of the priestly caste, who occupied themselves with the sacred
arts and sciences of the Egyptians, the hieroglyphic writings,
astrology, the interpretation of dreams, the foretelling of events,
magic, and conjuring, and who were regarded as the possessors
of secret arts (vid. Ex. vii. 11) and the wise men of the nation.
But not one of these could interpret it, although the clue to the
interpretation was to be found in the religious symbols of Egypt.*
For the cow was the symbol of Isis, the goddess of the all-sus-
taining earth, and in the hieroglyphics it represented the earth,
agriculture, and food ; and the Nile, by its overflowing, was the
source of the fertility of the land. But however simple the expla-
nation of the fat and lean cows ascending out of the Nile appears
to be, it is " the fate of the wisdom of this world, that where it
suffices it is compelled to be silent. For it belongs to the govern-
ment of God to close the lips of the eloquent, and take away the
understanding of the aged (Job xii. 20)." Bdumgarten.
Vers. 9 sqq. In this dilemma the head cup-bearer thought of
Joseph ; and calling to mind his offence against the king (xl. 1),
and his ingratitude to Joseph (xl. 23), he related to the king
how Joseph had explained their dreams to him and the chief
baker in the prison, and how entirely the interpretation had
come true. — Vers. 14 sqq. Pharaoh immediately sent for Joseph.
As quickly as possible he was fetched from the prison ; and after
shaving the hair of his head and beard, and changing his clothes,
as the customs of Egypt required (see Hengst. Egypt and the
Books of Moses, p. 30), he went in to the king. On the king's
saying to him, " I have heard of thee (T.jW de te), thou hearest a
dream to interpret it" — i.e. thou only needest to hear a dream, and
thou canst at once interpret it, — Joseph replied, " Not I (V!V- ?>
350 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
lit. "not so far as me," this is not in my power, vid. xiv. 24), God
will answer Pharaolis good" i.e. what shall profit Pharaoh ; just
as in chap. xl. 8 he had pointed the two prisoners away from
himself to God. Pharaoh then related his double dream (vers.
17-24), and Joseph gave the interpretation (vers. 25-32): "The
dream of Pharaoh is one (i.e. the two dreams have the same
meaning) ; God hath shoioed Pharaoh what He is about to do."
The seven cows and seven ears of corn were seven years, the
fat ones very fertile years of superabundance, the lean ones very
barren years of famine ; the latter would follow the former over
the whole land of Egypt, so that the years of famine would leave
no trace of the seven fruitful years ; and, " for that (he dream
was doubled unto Pharaoh twice" (i.e. so far as this fact is con-
cerned, it signifies) " that the thing is firmly resolved by God,
and God will quickly carry it out." In the confidence of this
interpretation which looked forward over fourteen years, the
divinely enlightened seer's glance was clearly manifested, and
Could not fail to make an impression upon the king, when con-
trasted with the perplexity of the Egyptian augurs and wise
men. Joseph followed up his interpretation by the advice (vers.
33-36), that Pharaoh should " look out ($~)?.) a man discreet and
wise, and set him over the land of Egypt ; " and cause (JWW) that
in the seven years of superabundance he should raise fifths
(Wtofy, i.e. the fifth part of the harvest, through overseers, and
have the corn, or the stores of food (??&), laid up in the cities
" under the hand of the king," i.e. by royal authority and direc-
tion, as food for the land for the seven years of famine, that it
might not perish through famine.
Vers. 37-57. Joseph's promotion. — This counsel pleased
Pharaoh and all his servants, so that he said to them, " Shall we
find a man like this one, in whom the Spirit of God is?" " The
Spirit of Elohim" i.e. the spirit of supernatural insight and
wisdom. He then placed Joseph over his house, and over all
Egypt ; in other words, he chose him as his grand vizier, saying
to him, " After God hath showed thee all this, there is none dis-
creet and wise as thou" p& TB~/V, "according to thy mouth (i.e.
command, chap. xlv. 21) shall my whole people arrange itself."
?V) does not mean to kiss (Rabb., Ges., etc.), for hv pw is not
Hebrew, and kissing the mouth was not customary as an act of
CHAP. XLI. 37-57. 351
homage, but " to dispose, arrange one's self" (ordine disposuit).
" Only in the throne will I be greater than thou." — Vers. 42 sqq.
As an installation in this post of honour, the king handed him
his signet-ring, the seal which the grand vizier or prime minister
wore, to give authority to the royal edicts (Esth. iii. 10), clothed
him in a byssus dress (SPB^ fine muslin or white cotton fabric),1
and put upon his neck the golden chain, which was usually worn
in Egypt as a mark of distinction, as the Egyptian monuments
show (Hgst. pp. 30, 31). — Ver. 43. He then had him driven in
the second chariot, the chariot which followed immediately upon
the king's state-carriage ; that is to say, he directed a solemn
procession to be made through the city, in which they (heralds)
cried before him T}?^ (}-e. bow down), — an Egyptian word, which
has been pointed by the Masorites according to the Hiphil or Aphel
of T}3. In Coptic it is abork, projicere, with the signs of the
imperative and the second person. Thus he placed him over all
Egypt. Jirijl inf. absol. as a continuation of the finite verb (vid.
Ex. viii. 11 ; Lev. xxv. 14, etc.). — Ver. 44. " lam Pharaoh" he
said to him, " and without thee shall no man lift his hand or foot
in all the land of Egypt ;" i.e. I am the actual king, and thou, the
next to me, shalt rule over all my people. — Ver. 45. But in order
that Joseph might be perfectly naturalized, the king gave him
an Egyptian name, Zaphnath-Paaneah, and married him to
Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, the priest at On. The
name Zaphnath-Paaneah (a form adapted to the Hebrew, for
Wovdofj,(f)avri'x (LXX.) ; according to a Greek scholium, awrrip
koct/jlov, " salvator mundi" (Jerome)), answers to the Coptic
P-sote-m-ph-eneh, — P the article, sote salvation, m the sign of the
genitive, ph the article, and eneh the world (lit. cetas, seculum) ; or
perhaps more correctly, according to Rosellini and more recent
Egyptologists, to the Coptic P-sont-em-ph-anh, i.e. sustentator
vitce, support or sustainer of life, with reference to the call en-
trusted to him by God.2 Asenath, ' AaeveO (LXX.), possibly
1 See my Bibl. Antiquities, § 17, 5. The reference, no doubt, is to the
ia&rrra "hivk-nv, worn by the Egyptian priests, which was not made of linen,
but of the frutex quern aliqui gossipion vocant, plures xylon et ideo lina inde
facta xylina. Nee ulla sunt eis candore mollitiave prseferenda. — Vestes inde
sacerdotibus JEgypti gratissimse. Plin. h. n. xix. 1.
2 Luther in his version, " privy councillor," follows the rabbinical ex-
planation, which was already to be found in Josephus (Ant. ii. 6, 1) : x.pv7rru»
tuptriis, from ]-|3DV — TYiaiSX occulta, and nJJ?D revelatur.
352 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
connected with the name Neitli, the Egyptian Pallas. Poti-
Phera, JJere^prj (LXX.), a Coptic name signifying Me qui solis
est, consecrated to the sun (<ppr) with the aspirated article signi-
fies the sun in Memphitic). On was the popular name for Ilelio-
polis (' H\Lov7ro\t<i, LXX.), and according to Cyrill. Alex, ad
IIos. v. 8 signifies the sun ; whilst the name upon the monuments
is ta-Rd or pa-Ed, house of the sun (Brugsch, Reisebericht, p. 50).
From a very early date there was a celebrated temple of the sun
here, with a learned priesthood, which held the first place among
the priests' colleges of Egypt (Herod. 2, 3; Hengst. pp. 32 sqq.).
This promotion of Joseph, from the position of a Hebrew slave
pining in prison to the highest post of honour in the Egyptian
kingdom, is perfectly conceivable, on the one hand, from the great
importance attached in ancient times to the interpretation of
dreams and to all occult science, especially among the Egyp-
tians, and on the other hand, from the despotic form of govern-
ment in the East ; but the miraculous power of God is to be seen
in the fact, that God endowed Joseph with the gift of infallible
interpretation, and so ordered the circumstances that this gift
opened the way for him to occupy that position in which he
became the preserver, not of Egypt alone, but of his own family
also. And the same hand of God, by which he had been so
highly exalted after deep degradation, preserved him in his lofty
post of honour from sinking into the heathenism of Egypt;
although, by his alliance with the daughter of a priest of the
sun, the most distinguished caste in the land, he had fully
entered into the national associations and customs of the land. —
Ver. 46. Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh,
and went out from him and passed through all the land of Egypt,
i.e. when he took possession of his office ; consequently he had
been in Egypt for 13 years as a slave, and at least three years
in prison.
Vers. 47 sqq. For the seven years of superabundance the
land bore U^l2\h, in full hands or bundles ; and Joseph gathered
all the provisional store of these years (i.e. the fifth part of
the produce, which was levied) into the cities. " The food of
the field of the city, which was round about it, he brought
into the midst of it;" i.e. he provided granaries in the towns, in
which the corn of the whole surrounding country was stored."
In this manner he collected as much corn " as the sand of the
CHAP. XLI. 47-57. 353
sea," until lie left off reckoning the quantity, or calculating
the number of bushels, which the monuments prove to have
been the usual mode adopted (vid. Ilengst. p. 36). — Vers. 50-52.
During the fruitful years two sons were born to Joseph. The
first-born he named Manasseh, i.e. causing to forget ; "for, he
said, God hath made me forget all my toil and all my father's
house QX&), an Aram. Piel form, for *2#3, on account of the re-
semblance in sound to fflSbfc)." Hcbc pia est, ac sancta gratiarum
actio, quod Deus oblivisci eum fecit pristinas omnes cerumnas : sed
nullus honor tanti esse debuit, ut desiderium et memoriam paternal
domus ex animo deponeret {Calvin). But the true answer to the
question, whether it was a Christian boast for him to make, that
he had forgotten father and mother, is given by Luther : " I see
that God would take away the reliance which I placed upon my
father ; for God is a jealous God, and will not suffer the heart
to have any other foundation to rely upon, but Him alone."
This also meets the objection raised by Theodoret, why Joseph
did not inform his father of his life and promotion, but allowed
so many years to pass away, until he was led to do so at last in
consequence of the arrival of his brothers. The reason of this
forgetfulness and silence can only be found in the fact, that
through the wondrous alteration in his condition he had been
led to see, that he was brought to Egypt according to the counsel
of God, and was redeemed by God from slavery and prison, and
had been exalted by Him to be lord over Egypt ; so that, know-
ing he was in the hand of God, the firmness of his faith led him
to renounce all wilful interference with the purposes of God,
which pointed to a still broader and more glorious goal (Baum-
garten, Delitzsch). — Ver. 52. The second son he named Ephraim,
i.e. double-fruitfulness ; " for God hath made me fruitful in the
land of my affliction^ Even after his elevation Egypt still con-
tinued the land of affliction, so that in this word we may see one
trace of a longing for the promised land. — Vers. 53-57. When
the years of scarcity commenced, at the close of the years of
plenty, the famine spread over all (the neighbouring) lands ;
only in Egypt was there bread. As the famine increased in the
land, and the people cried to Pharaoh for bread, he directed
them to Joseph, who "opened all in which was" (bread), i.e.
all the granaries, and sold corn (^f, denom. from "Ofi?, signifies
to trade in corn, to buy and sell corn) to the Egyptians, and
354 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
(as the writer adds, with a view to what follows) to all the
world (;"isn"?3, ver. 57), that came thither to buy corn, because
the famine was great on every hand. — Years of famine have
frequently fallen, like this one, upon Egypt, and the neigh-
bouring countries to the north. The cause of this is to be seen
in the fact, that the overflowing of the Nile, to which Egypt is
indebted for its fertility, is produced by torrents of rain falling
in the alpine regions of Abyssinia, which proceed from clouds
formed in the Mediterranean and carried thither by the wind ;
consequently it has a common origin with the rains of Palestine
(see the proofs in Ilengst. pp. 37 sqq.).
FIRST JOURNEY MADE TO EGYPT BY JOSEPH'S BRETHREN,
WITHOUT BENJAMIN. — CHAP. XL1I.
Vers. 1-6. With the words " Why do ye look at one anotlxerV
viz. in such a helpless and undecided manner, Jacob exhorted his
sons to fetch corn from Egypt, to preserve his family from star-
vation. Joseph's ten brothers went, as their aged father would
not allow his youngest son Benjamin to go with them, for fear
that some calamity might befall him (N")j5 = rnj3} xliv. 29 as in ver-
38 and xlix. 1) ; and they came " in the midst of the comers" i.e.
among others who came from the same necessity, and bowed
down before Joseph with their faces to the earth. For he was
" the ruler over the land," and had the supreme control of the
sale of the corn, so that they were obliged to apply to him.
Dwn seems to have been the standing title which the Shemites
gave to Joseph as ruler in Egypt ; and from this the later legend
of HdXarts the first king of the Hyksos arose (Josephus c. Ap.
i. 14). The only other passages in which the word occurs in
the Old Testament arc in writings of the captivity or a still
later date, and there it is taken from the Chaldee ; it belongs,
however, not merely to the Aramaean thesaurus, but to the
Arabic also, from which it was introduced into the passage
before us.
Vers. 7-17. Joseph recognised his brothers at once; but
they could not recognise a brother who had not been seen for
■_'() years, and who, moreover, had not only become thoroughly
Egyptianized, but had risen to be a great lord. And he acted
as a foreigner ("^IT) towards them, speaking harshly, and
CHAP. XLII. 7-17. 355
asking them whence they had come. In ver. 7, according to a
truly Semitic style of narrative, we have a condensation of what
is more circumstantially related in vers. 8-17. — Vers. 9 sqq. As
the sight of his brethren bowing before him with the deepest reve-
rence reminded Joseph of his early dreams of the sheaves and
stars, which had so increased the hatred of his brethren towards
him as to lead to a proposal to kill him, and an actual sale, he
said to them, " Ye are spies ; to see the nakedness of the land (i.e.
the unfortified parts of the kingdom which would be easily acces-
sible to a foe) ye are come;'' and persisted in this charge notwith-
standing their reply, "Nay, my lord, but () see Ges. § 155, 16) to
buy food are thy servants come. We are all one mans sons (una
for ^riJN, only in Ex. xvi. 7, 8 ; Num. xxxii. 32 ; 2 Sam. xvii.
12; Lam. iii. 42): honest (p^r) cire we; thy servants are no
spies." Cum exploratio sit delictum capitale, non est verisimile ;
quod pater tot filios uno tempore vitce periculo expositurus sit (J.
Gerhard). But as their assertion failed to make any impression
upon the Egyptian lord, they told him still more particularly about
their family (vers. 13 sqq.) : " Twelve are thy servants, brothers
are we, sons of a man in the land of Canaan; and behold the
youngest is now with our father, and one is no more (^N as in chap,
v. 24). Joseph then replied, " That is it (sin neut. like xx. 16)
that I spake unto you, saying ye are spies. By this shall ye be proved:
By the life of Pharaoh! ye shall not (OS, like xiv. 23) go hence, un-
less your youngest brother come hither. Send one of you, and let
him fetch your brother; but ye shall be in bonds, and your words
shall be proved, whether there be truth in you or not. By the life
of Pharaoh ! ye are truly spies!" He then had them put into
custody for three days. By the coming of the youngest brother,
Joseph wanted to test their assertion, not because he thought
it possible that he might not be living with them, and they
might have treated him as they did Joseph (Kn.), but because
he wished to discover their feelings towards Benjamin, and see
what affection they had for this son of Kachel, who had taken
Joseph's place as his father's favourite. And with his harsh
mode of addressing them, Joseph had no intention whatever to
administer to his brethren " a just punishment for their wicked-
ness towards him," for his heart could not have stooped to such
mean revenge ; but he wanted to probe thoroughly the feelings
of their hearts, " whether they felt that they deserved the pun-
35G THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
ishment of God for the sin they had committed," and how they
felt towards their aged father and their youngest brother.1
Even in the fact that he did not send the one away directly to
fetch Benjamin, and merely detain the rest, but put the whole
ten in prison, and afterwards modified his threat (vers. 18 sqq.),
there was no indecision as to the manner in which he should
behave towards them — no " wavering between thoughts of
wrath and revenge on the one hand, and forgiving love and
meekness on the other;" but he hoped by imprisoning them to
make his brethren feel the earnestness of his words, and to give
them time for reflection, as the curt "is no more" with which
they had alluded to Joseph's removal was a sufficient proof that
they had not yet truly repented of the deed.
Vers. 18-25. On the third day Joseph modified his severity.
"This do and live," i.e. then ye shall live: u I fear God."
One shall remain in prison, but let the rest of you take home
"corn for the famine of your families," and fetch your youngest
brother, that your words may be verified, and ye may not die,
i.e. may not suffer the death that spies deserve. That he might
not present the appearance of despotic caprice and tyranny by
too great severity, and so render his brethren obdurate, Joseph
stated as the reason for his new decision, that he feared God.
From the fear of God, he, the lord of Egypt, would not punish
or slay these strangers upon mere suspicion, but would judge
them justly. How differently had they acted towards their
brother! The ruler of all Egypt had compassion on their fami-
lies who were in Canaan suffering from hunger; but they had
1 Joseph nihil aliud agit quam ut revelet peceatum fratrum hoc duris-
simo opere et sermone. Descendant enim in vEgyptuni una cum aliis em-
tum fruinentuin, securi et negligentes tarn atrocis delicti, cujus sibi erant
conscii, quasi nihil unquam deliquissent contra patrem decrepitmn aut
fratrem innoccntem, cogitant Joseph jam diu exemtum esse rebus humanis,
patrem vero rerum omnium ignarum esse. Quid ad nos? Non agunt pceni-
tentiam. Hi silices et adamantes frangendi et conterendi sunt ac aperiendi
oculi eorum, ut videant atrocitatem sceleris sui, idque ubi perfecit Joseph
Btatim vt'iliis et geatibus humaniorem so praebet eosque honorifice tractat. —
llajc igitur atrocitas Bcelerum movit Joseph ad explorandos animos fratrum
accoratius, ita nt non Bolum priorum deUctorum sed et oogitationum pra-
varum meinoriam rcnovaret, ac fuit sane inquisitio satis ingrata et acerba
et tamen ab animo placidissimo profecta. Ego duriua eos tractassem. Sed
hsec acerbitas, quam pra se fert, non pertinet ad vindicandum injuriamsed
a 1 Balatarem eorum poenitentiam, ut humilientur. — Luther.
CHAP. XLII. 26-38. 357
intended to leave their brother in the pit to starve ! These and
similar thoughts could hardly fail to pass involuntarily through
their minds at Joseph's words, and to lead them to a penitential
acknowledgment of their sin and unrighteousness. The notion
that Joseph altered his first intention merely from regard to his
much afflicted father, appears improbable, for the simple reason,
that he can only have given utterance to the threat that he would
keep them all in prison till one of them had gone and fetched
Benjamin, for the purpose of giving the greater force to his ac-
cusation, that they were spies. But as he was not serious in
making this charge, he could not for a moment have thought of
actually carrying out the threat. "And they did so:" in these
words the writer anticipates the result of the colloquy which
ensued, and which is more fully narrated afterwards. Joseph's
intention was fulfilled. The brothers now saw in what had hap-
pened to them a divine retribution : "Surely we atone because of
our brother, lohose anguish of soid ice saw, when he entreated us and
we would not hear ; therefore is this distress come upon us." And
Reuben reminded them how he had warned them to no purpose,
not to sin against the boy — "and even his blood . . . behold it is
required" (cf. ix. 5) ; i.e. not merely the sin of casting him into
the pit and then selling him, but his death also, of which we
have been guilty through that sale. Thus they accused them-
selves in Joseph's presence, not knowing that he could under-
stand ; "for the interpreter was between them." Joseph had con-
versed with them through an interpreter, as an Egyptian who
was ignorant of their language. " The interpreter," viz. the one
appointed for that purpose ; nfa*3 like xxvi. 2.8. But Joseph
understood their words, and "turned away and wept" (ver.
24), with inward emotion at the wonderful leadings of divine
grace, and at the change in his brothers' feelings. He then
turned to them again, and, continuing the conversation with
them, had Simeon bound before their eyes, to be detained as a
hostage (not Reuben, who had dissuaded them from killing
Joseph, and had taken no part in the sale, but Simeon, the next
in age). He then ordered his men to fill their sacks with corn,
to give every one (B^K as in chap. xv. 10) his money back in his
sack, and to provide them with food for the journey.
Vers. 26-38. Thus they started with their asses laden with
the corn. On the way, when they had reached their halting-
358 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
place for the night, one of them opened his sack to feed the ass,
and found his money in it. flTB, camping-place for the night, is
merely a resting-place, not an inn, both here and in Ex. iv. 24 ;
for there can hardly have been caravanserais at that time, either
in the desert or by the desert roa<l. nnriDX : an antiquated
word for a corn-sack, occurring only in these chapters, and used
even here interchangeably with pB\ — Ver 28. When this dis-
covery was made known to the brethren, their hearts sank within
them. They turned trembling to one another, and said, u What
is this that God hath done to us ! " Joseph had no doubt had
the money returned, " merely because it was against his nature
to trade with his father and brethren for bread ;" just as he
had caused them to be supplied with food for the journey, for
no other reason than to give them a proof of his good-will.
And even if he may have thought it possible that the brothers
would be alarmed when they found the money, and thrown into
a state of much greater anxiety from the fear of being still
further accused by the stern lord of Egypt of cheating or of
theft, there was no reason why he should spare them this anxiety,
since it could only help to break their hard hearts still more
At any rate, this salutary effect was really produced, even if
Joseph had no such intention. The brothers looked upon this
incomprehensible affair as a punishment from God, and ne-
glected in their alarm to examine the rest of the sacks. — Vers.
29-34. On their arrival at home, they told their father all that
had occurred. — Vers. 35 sqq. But when they emptied their sacks,
and, to their own and their father's terror, found their bundles
of money in their separate sacks, Jacob burst out with the com-
plaint, u Ye are making me childless! Joseph is gone, and Simeon is
gone, and will ye take Benjamin ! All this falls upon me" ('"'^?
for }^3 as in Prov. xxxi. 29). — Vers. 37, 38. Reuben then offered
his two sons to Jacob as pledges for Benjamin, if Jacob would
entrust him to his care : Jacob might slay them, if he did not
bring Benjamin back — the greatest and dearest offer that a
son could make to a father. But Jacob refused to let him go.
" //' mischief befell him by the way, ye would bring down my grey
liairs icith sorrow into Sheol" (cf. xxxvii. 35).
chap, xliii 1-15. 359
THE SECOND VISIT OF JOSEPH S BRETHREN TO EGYPT, ALONG
WITH BENJAMIN. — CHAP. XLIII. "
Vers. 1-15. When the corn brought from Egypt was all con-
sumed, as the famine still continued, Jacob called upon his sons
to go down and fetch a little corn (little in proportion to their
need). — Vers. 3 sqq. Judah then declared, that they would not
go there again unless their father sent Benjamin with them ; for
the man (Joseph) had solemnly protested (*lJ?n 1J>n) that they
•should not see his face without their youngest brother. Judah
undertook the consultation with his father about Benjamin's
going, because Reuben, the eldest son, had already been refused,
and Levi, who followed Reuben and Simeon, had forfeited his
father's confidence through his treachery to the Shechemites
(chap, xxxiv.). — Vers. 6 sqq. To the father's reproachful ques-
tion, why they had dealt so ill with him, as to tell the man that
they had a brother, Judah replied : "The man asked after us
and our kinsmen : Is your father yet alive ? have ye a brother ?
And we answered him in conformity, i^& ?V as in Ex. xxxiv. 27,
etc.) with these words (i.e. with his questions). Could we know,
then, that he would say, Bring your brother down ? " Joseph had
not made direct inquiries, indeed, about their father and their
brother ; but by his accusation that they were spies, he had com-
pelled them to give an exact account of their family relation-
ships. So that Judah, when repeating the main points of the
interview, could very justly give them in the form just men-
tioned.— Ver. 8. He then repeated the only condition on which
they would go to Egypt again, referring to the death by famine
which threatened them, their father, and their children, and
promising that he would himself be surety for the youth (1J?|n,
Benjamin was twenty-three years old), and saying, that if he did
not restore him, he would bear the blame (Nttn *0 De gu^ty of a
sin and atone for it, as in 1 Kings i. 21) his whole life long.
He then concluded with the deciding words, "for if we had not
delayed, surely we should already have returned a second time." —
Ver. 11. After this, the old man gave way to what could not be
avoided, and let Benjamin go. But that nothing might be want-
ing on his part, which could contribute to the success of the
journey, he suggested that they should take a present for the man,
and that they should also take the money which was brought
;->G0 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
back in their sacks, in addition to what was necessary for the
corn they were to purchase ; and he then commended them to
the mercy of Almighty God. " If it must be so, yet do this (NiEX
belongs to the imperative, although it precedes it here, cf. xxvii.
37) : take of the prize (the most choice productions) of the land
— a little balm and a little honey (B^W the Arabian dibs, either
new honey from bees, or more probably honey from grapes, — a
thick syrup boiled from sweet grapes, which is still carried every
year from Hebron to Egypt), gum-dragon and myrrh (rid. xxxvii.
25), jnstachio nuts and almonds." D*Jt?2t, which are not mentioned
anywhere else, are, according to the Samar. vers., the fruit of the
pistacia vera, a tree resembling the terebinth; — long angular
nuts of the size of hazel-nuts, with an oily kernel of a pleasant
flavour ; it does not thrive in Palestine now, but the nuts are
imported from Aleppo. — Ver. 12. " And take second (i.e. more)
money (•^B'D *1D3 is different from *|D3"naB>p doubling of the
money — double money, ver. 15) in your hand ; and the money
that returned in your sacks take with you again ; perhaps it is a
mistake," i.e. was put in your sacks by mistake. — Ver. 14. Thus
Israel let his sons go with the blessing, " God Almighty give you
mercy before the man, that he may liberate to you your other
brother (Simeon) and Benjamin" and with this resigned submis-
sion to the will of God, " And I, if I am bereaved, lam bereaved"
i.e. if I am to lose my children, let it be so ! For this mode of
expression, cf. Esth. iv. 16 and 2 Kings vii. 4. "w^ with the
pausal a, answering to the feelings of the speaker, which is fre-
quently used for o ; e.g. *P®\ for *f»tP, chap. xlix. 27.
Vers. 16-25. When the brethren appeared before Joseph,
he ordered his steward to take them into the house, and pre-
pare a dinner for them and for him. nip the original form of
the imperative for n3D. But the brethren were alarmed, think-
ing that they were taken into the house because of the money
which returned the first time (3tfn which came back, they could
not imagine how), that he might take them unawares (lit. roll
upon them), and fall upon them, and keep them as slaves, along
with their asses. For the purpose of averting what they dreaded,
they approached (ver. 19) the steward and told him, "at the door
of the house," before they entered therefore, how, at the first
purchase of corn, on opening their sacks, they found the money
that had been paid, " every one's money in the mouth of his sack,
CHAP. XLIII. 26-34. 361
our money according to its weight" i.e. in full, and had now
brought it back, together with some more money to buy corn,
and they did not know who had put their money in their sacks
(vers. 20-22). The steward, who was initiated into Joseph's
plans, replied in a pacifying tone, " Peace be to you (03? DW
is not a form of salutation here, but of encouragement, as in
Judg. vi. 23) : fear not ; your God and the God of your father has
given you a treasure in your sacks; your money came to me; " and
at the same time, to banish all their fear, he brought Simeon
out to them. He then conducted them into Joseph's house, and
received them in Oriental fashion as the guests of his lord.
But, previous to Joseph's arrival, they arranged the present
which they had brought with them, as they heard that they were
to dine with him.
Vers. 26-34. When Joseph came home, they handed him the
present with the most reverential obeisance. — Ver. 27. Joseph first
of all inquired after their own and their father's health (Di7B> first
as substantive, then as adjective = tw xxxiii. 18), whether he was
still living ; which they answered with thanks in the affirmative,
making the deepest bow. His eyes then fell upon Benjamin,
the brother by his own mother, and he asked whether this was
their youngest brother ; but without waiting for their reply, he
exclaimed, " God be gracious to thee, my son!" "^IT for ^^ as in
Isa. xxx. 19 (cf. Ewald, § 251(f). He addressed him as "my
son," in tender and, as it were, paternal affection, and with spe-
cial regard to his youth. Benjamin was 16 years younger than
Joseph, and was quite an infant when Joseph was sold. — Vers.
30, 31. And "his (Joseph's) bowels did yearn" (V1B3J lit. were
compressed, from the force of love to his brother), so that he
was obliged to seek (a place) as quickly as possible to weep, and
went into the chamber, that he might give vent to his feelings
in tears ; after which, he washed his face and came out again,
and, putting constraint upon himself, ordered the dinner to be
brought in. — Vers. 32, 33. Separate tables were prepared for
him, for his brethren, and for the Egyptians who dined with
them. This was required by the Egyptian spirit of caste, which
neither allowed Joseph, as minister of state and a member of the
priestly order, to eat along with Egyptians who were below him,
nor the latter along with the Hebrews as foreigners. " They can-
not (i.e. may not) eat (cf. Deut. xii. 17, xvi. 5, xvii. 15). For
PENT. — VOL. I. 2 A
3G2 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES
this was an abomination to the Egyptians." The Hebrews and
others, for example, slaughtered and ate animals, even female ani-
mals, which were regarded by the Egyptians as sacred ; so that,
according to Herod, ii. 41, no Egyptian would use the knife, or
fork, or saucepan of a Greek, nor would any eat of the flesh of
a clean animal which had been cut up with a Grecian knife
(cf. Ex. viii. 22).— Vers. 33, 34. The brothers sat in front of
Joseph, " the first-born according to his birthright, and the smallest
(youngest) according to his smallness (youth);" i.e. the places
were arranged for them according to their ages, so that they
looked at one another with astonishment, since this arrangement
necessarily impressed them with the idea that this great man
had been supernaturally enlightened as to their family affairs.
To do them honour, they brought (Kfe*, Ges. § 137, 3) them
dishes from Joseph, i.e. from his table ; and to show especial
honour to Benjamin, his portion was five times larger than that of
any of the others (niT lit. hands, grasps, as in chap, xlvii. 24 ;
2 Kings xi. 7). The custom is met with elsewhere of showing
respect to distinguished guests by giving them the largest and
best pieces (1 Sam. ix. 23, 24 ; Homer, II. 7, 321 ; 8, 162, etc.),
by double portions (e.g. the kings among the Spartans, Herod.
6, 57), and even by fourfold portions in the case of the Archons
among the Cretans (Heraclid. polit. 3). But among the Egyp-
tians the number 5 appears to have been preferred to any other
(cf. chap. xli. 34, xlv. 22, xlvii. 2, 24 ; Isa. xix. 18). By this par-
tiality Joseph intended,- with a view to his further plans, to draw
out his brethren to show their real feelings towards Benjamin, that
he might see whether they would envy and hate him on account
of this distinction, as they had formerly envied him his long coat
with sleeves, and hated him because he was his father's favourite
(xxxvii. 3, 4). This honourable treatment and entertainment
banished all their anxiety and fear. " They drank, and drank
largely with him" i.e. they were perfectly satisfied with what they
ate and drank ; not, they were intoxicated (cf. Hag. i. 9).
THE LAST TEST AND ITS RESULTS. — CHAP. XLIV.
Vers. 1-13. The test. — Vers. 1, 2. After the dinner Joseph
had his brothers' sacks filled by his steward with corn, as much
as they could hold, and every one's money placed inside ; and
CHAP. XLIV. 1-13. 363
in addition to that, had his own silver goblet put into Ben-
jamin's sack. — Vers. 3-6. Then as soon as it was light ("rix, 3d
pers. perf. in o: Ges. § 72, 1), they were sent away with their
asses. But they were hardly outside the town, " not far off,"
when he directed his steward to follow the men, and as soon as
he overtook them, to say, " Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for
good ? Is it not this from which my lord drinketh, and he is ac-
customed to prophesy from it? Ye have done an evil deed!"
By these words they were accused of theft; the thing was taken
for granted as well known to them all, and the goblet purloined
was simply described as a very valuable possession of Joseph's.
t^n3 : Ut. to whisper, to mumble out formularies, incantations,
then to prophesy, divinare. According to this, the Egyptians
at that time practised XeKavoo-fcoTrtr) or Xe/cavo/Aavreta and
vhpofxavr^ia, the plate and water incantations, of which Jambli-
chus speaks (de myst. iii. 14), and which consisted in pouring
clean water into a goblet, and then looking into the water for
representations of future events ; or in pouring water into a
goblet or dish, dropping in pieces of gold and silver, also
precious stones, and then observing and interpreting the appear-
ances in the water (cf. Varro apud August, civ. Dei 7, 35 ;
Plin. h. n. 37, 73 ; Strabo, xvi. p. 762). Traces of this have
been continued even to our own day (see NorderHs Journey
through Egypt and Nubia). But we cannot infer with cer-
tainty from this, that Joseph actually adopted this superstitious
practice. The intention of the statement may simply have been
to represent the goblet as a sacred vessel, and Joseph as ac-
quainted with the most secret things (ver. 15). — Vers. 7-9. In
the consciousness of their innocence the brethren repelled this
charge with indignation, and appealed to the fact that they
brought back the gold which was found in their sacks, and
therefore could not possibly have stolen gold or silver ; and de-
clared that whoever should be found in possession of the goblet,
should be put to death, and the rest become slaves. — Ver. 10.
The man replied, "Now let it he even (D3 placed first for the sake
of emphasis) according to your words: with whom it is found, he
shall he my slave, and ye (the rest) shall remain blameless."
Thus he modified the sentence, to assume the appearance of jus-
tice.— Vers. 11-13. They then took down their sacks as quickly
as possible ; and he examined them, beginning with the eldest
364 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
and finishing with the youngest ; and the goblet was found in
Benjamin's sack. With anguish and alarm at this new calamity
they rent their clothes (yid. xxxvii. 34), loaded their asses again,
and returned to the city. It would now be seen how they felt in
their inmost hearts towards their father's favourite, who had
been so distinguished by the great man of Egypt : whether now
as formerly they were capable of giving up their brother, and
bringing their aged father with sorrow to the grave ; or whether
they were ready, with unenvying, self-sacrificing love, to give up
their own liberty and lives for him. And they stood this test.
Vers. 14-34. Eesult of the test. — Vers. 14-17. With
Judah leading the way, they came into the house to Joseph,
and fell down before him begging for mercy. Joseph spoke to
them harshly : " What kind of deed is this that ye have done ?
Did ye not know that such a man as I (a man initiated into the
most secret things) would certainly divine this?" V?fO augurari.
Judah made no attempt at a defence. " \Wiat shall we say to
my lord? how speak, how clear ourselves ? God (Ha-Elohim, the
personal God) has found out the wickedness of thy servants (i.e.
He is now punishing the crime committed against our brother,
cf. xlii. 21). Behold, we are my lorcTs slaves, both xoe, and he
in whose hand the cup was found? But Joseph would punish
mildly and justly. The guilty one alone should be bis slave ;
the others might go in peace, i.e. uninjured, to their father. —
Vers. 18 sqq. But that the brothers could not do. Judah, who
had pledged himself to his father for Benjamin, ventured in the
anguish of his heart to approach Joseph, and implore him to
liberate his brother. "I would give very much," says Luther,
" to be able to pray to our Lord God as well as Judah prays to
Joseph here; for it is a perfect specimen of prayer, the true
feeling that there ought to be in prayer." Beginning with the
request for a gracious hearing, as he was speaking to the ears of
one who was equal to Pharaoh (who could condemn or pardon
like the king), Judah depicted in natural, affecting, powerful,
and irresistible words the love of their aged father to this son of
his old age, and his grief when they told him that they were not
to come into the presence of the lord of Egypt again without
Benjamin; the intense anxiety with which, after a severe
struggle, their father had allowed him to come, after he
CHAP. XLV. 1-15. 365
(Judah) had offered to be answerable for his life ; and the
grievous fact, that if they returned without the youth, they
must bring down the grey hairs of their father with sorrow to
the grave. — Ver. 21. To u set eyes upon him" signifies, with a
gracious intention, to show him good-will (as in Jer. xxxix.
12, xl. 4). — Ver. 27. " That my wife bore me tivo (sons) :"
Jacob regards Rachel alone as his actual wife (cf. xlvi. 19). —
Ver. 28 "1B&, preceded by a preterite, is to be rendered " and
I was obliged to say, Only (nothing but) torn in pieces has he be-
come."— Ver. 30. " His soul is bound to his soul:" equivalent to,
"he clings to him with all his soul." — Vers. 33, 34. Judah
closed his appeal with the entreaty, "Now let thy servant (me)
remain instead of the lad as slave to my lord, but let the lad go
up with his brethren ; for hoiv could I go to my father without the
lad being, with me I (I cannot,) that I may not see the calamity
which will befall my father I "
THE RECOGNITION. INVITATION TO JACOB TO COME DOWN
TO EGYPT. — CHAP. XLV.
Vers. 1-15. The recognition. — Ver. 1. After this ap-
peal, in which Judah, speaking for his brethren, had shown the
tenderest affection for the old man who had been bowed down
by their sin, and the most devoted fraternal love and fidelity to
the only remaining son of his beloved Rachel, and had given a
sufficient proof of the change of' mind, the true conversion, that
had taken place in themselves, Joseph could not restrain him-
self any longer in relation to all those who stood round him.
He was obliged to relinquish the part which he had hitherto
acted for the purpose of testing his brothers' hearts, and to give
full vent to his feelings. " He called out : Cause every man to go
out from me. And there stood no man (of his Egyptian attendants)
loith him, while Joseph made himself known to his brethren" quia
effusio ilia affectuum et o-Topyr}*; erga fratres et parentem tantafuit,
ut non posset ferre alienorum prcesentiam et aspectum {Luther). —
Vers. 2, 3. As soon as all the rest were gone, he broke out into
such loud weeping, that the Egyptians outside could hear it; and
the house of Pharaoh, i.e. the royal family, was told of it (cf.
vers. 2 and 16). He then said to his brethren : "lam Joseph.
Is my father still alive?" That his father was still living, he
3G6 TIIE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
had not only been informed before (xliii. 27), but had just been
told again ; but his filial heart impels him to make sure of it once
more. " But his brethren could not ansiver him, for they were
terrified before him : " they were so smitten in their consciences,
that from astonishment and terror they could not utter a word.
— Vers. 4, 5. Joseph then bade his brethren approach nearer,
and said: " I am Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
But now be not grieved nor angry with yourselves (M^JJS in*"?K
as in chap. xxxi. 35) that ye sold me hither ; for God hath sent
me before you to preserve life? Sic enim Joseph interpretatur
venditionem. Vbs quidem me vendidistis, sed Deus emit, asseruit et
vindicavit me sibi pastorem, principem et salvatorem populorum
eodem consilio, quo videbar amissus et perditus (Luther). " For"
he continues in explanation, " now there are two years of famine
in the land, and there are five years more, in which there will be
no ploughing and reaping. And God hath sent me before you to
establish you a remnant (cf. 2 Sam. xiv. 7) upon the earth (i.e. to
secure to you the preservation of the tribe and of posterity during
this famine), and to preserve your lives to a great deliverance"
i.e. to a great nation delivered from destruction, cf. 1. 20. n9 ^?
that which has escaped, the band of men or multitude escaped
from death and destruction (2 Kings xix. 30, 31). Joseph
announced prophetically here, that God had brought him into
Egypt to preserve through him the family which He had chosen
for His own nation, and to deliver them out of the danger of
starvation which threatened them now, as a very great nation. —
Ver. 8. " And noiv (this was truly the case) it ivas not you that
sent me hither ; but God (Ha-Elohim, the personal God, in con-
trast with his brethren) hath made me a father to Pharaoh {i.e. his
most confidential counsellor and friend ; cf. 1 Mace. xi. 32, Ges.
thes. 7), and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the
land of Egypt; " cf. xli. 40, 41.
Vers. 9 sqq. Joseph then directed his brethren to go up to
their father with all speed, and invite him in his name to
come without delay, with all his family and possessions, into
Egypt, where he would keep him near himself, in the land of
Goshen (see xlvii. 11), that he might not perish in the still
remaining five years of famine. tPWI • ver. 11, lit. to be
robbed of one's possessions, to be taken possession of by another,
from BHJ to take possession. — Vers. 12, 13. But the brethren
CHAP. XLV. 16-28. 367
were so taken by surprise and overpowered by this unexpected
discovery, that to convince them of the reality of the whole
affair, Joseph was obliged to add, " Behold, your eyes see, and
the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that
speaketh unto you. And tell my father all my glory in
Egypt, and all that ye have seen, and bring my father quickly
hither." — Vers. 14, 15. He then fell upon Benjamin's neck and
wept, and kissed all his brethren and wept on them, i.e. whilst
embracing them ; " and after that, his brethren talked xuith him?''
1? *?!}*? ' after Joseph by a triple assurance, that what they had
done was the leading of God for their own good, had dispelled
their fear of retribution, and, by embracing and kissing them
with tears, had sealed the truth and sincerity of his words.
Vers. 16-28. Invitation to Jacob to come into Egypt.
— Vers. 16 sqq. The report of the arrival of Joseph's brethren
soon found its way into the palace, and made so favourable an
impression upon Pharaoh and his courtiers, that the king sent a
message through Joseph to his brethren to come with their
father and their families ("your houses") into Egypt, saying
that he would give them " the good of the land of Egypt" and
they should eat " the fat of the land." lib, "the good," is not
the best part, but the good things (produce) of the land, as in
vers. 20, 23, xxiv. 10, 2 Kings viii. 9. 3?n fat, i.e. the finest pro-
ductions.— Vers. 19, 20. At the same time Pharaoh empowered
Joseph (" thou art commanded ") to give his brethren carriages
to take with them, in which to convey their children and wives
and their aged father, and recommended them to leave their
goods behind them in Canaan, for the good of all Egypt was at
their service. From time immemorial Egypt was rich in small,
two-wheeled carriages, which could be used even where there
were no roads (cf. chap. 1. 9, Ex. xiv. 6 sqq. with Isa. xxxvi. 9)
" Let not your eye look with mourning (Dhn) at your goods ; " i.e.
do not trouble about the house-furniture which you are obliged
to leave behind. The good-will manifested in this invitation of
Pharaoh towards Jacob's family was to be attributed to the
feeling of gratitude to Joseph, and " is related circumstantially,
because this free and honourable invitation involved the right of
Israel to leave Egypt again without obstruction " (Delitzsch).
Vers. 21 sqq. The sons of Israel carried out the instructions
368 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
of Joseph and the invitation of Pharaoh (vers. 25-27). But
Joseph not only sent carriages according to Pharaoh's directions,
and food for the journey, he also gave them presents, changes of
raiment, a suit for every one, and five suits for Benjamin, as
well as 300 shekels of silver. Tmtofy nis^n : change of clothes,
clothes to change ; i.e. dress clothes which were worn on special
occasions and frequently changed (Judg. xiv. 12, 13, 19 ; 2
Kings v. 5). "And to his father he sent like these;" i.e. not
changes of clothes, but presents also, viz. ten asses "carrying
of the good of Egypt," and ten she-asses with corn and pro-
visions for the journey ; and sent them off with the injunction :
WJTW7K, fir] opylteade (LXX.), " do not get angry by the way."
Placatus erat Joseph fratribus, simul eos admonet, ne quid tur-
harum moveant. Timendum enim erat, ne quisque se jmrgando
crimen transferre in alios studeret atque ita surgeret contentio
(Calvin). — Vers. 25-28. When they got back, and brought
word to their father, "Joseph is still living, yea (^31 an em-
phatic assurance, Eivald, § 3306) he is ruler in all the land of
Egypt, his heart stopped, for he believed them not;" i.e. his heart
did not beat at this joyful news, for he put no faith in what
they said. It was not till they told him all that Joseph had said,
and he saw the carriages that Joseph had sent, that " the spirit
of their father Jacob revived; and Israel said: It is enough!
Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die."
Observe the significant interchange of Jacob and Israel. When
once the crushed spirit of the old man was revived by the cer-
tainty that his son Joseph was still alive, Jacob was changed
into Israel, the " conqueror overcoming his grief at the previous
misconduct of his sons " (Fr. v. Meyer).
REMOVAL OP ISRAEL TO GOSHEN IN EGYPT. — CHAP. XLVI.
Vers. 1-7. " So Israel took his journey (from Hebron, chap,
xxxvii. 14) with all who belonged to him, and came to Beersheba?
There, on the border of Canaan, where Abraham and Isaac had
called upon the name of the Lord (xxi. 33, xxvi. 25), he offered
sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac, nt sibi jftrmum et ratum
esse testetur fcedus, quod Deus ipse cum Patribus pepigerat (Cal-
vin). Even though Jacob might see the ways of God in the
wonderful course of his son Joseph, and discern in the friendly
CHAP. XLVI. 8-27. 369
invitation of Joseph and Pharaoh, combined with the famine
prevailing in Canaan, a divine direction to go into Egypt ; yet
this departure from the land of promise, in which his fathers
had lived as pilgrims, was a step which necessarily excited
serious thoughts in his mind as to his own future and that of
his family, and led him to commend himself and his follow-
ers to the care of the faithful covenant God, whether in so
doing he thought of the revelation which Abram had received
(chap. sv. 13-16), or not. — Ver. 2. Here God appeared to him
in a vision of the night (nk"lD3 an intensive plural), and gave
him, as once before on his flight from Canaan (xxviii. 12 sqq.),
the comforting promise, " / am ?Nn (the Mighty One), the God
of thy father : fear not to go down into Egypt (p^V? for rnnD, as
in Ex. ii. 4 njn for Djn, cf. Ges. § 69, 3, Anm.'l); for I will
ihere make thee a great nation. I will go down with thee into
Egypt, and I — bring thee up again also will I, and Joseph shall
close thine eyes." n-7J?"Qa an inf. abs. appended emphatically
(as in chap. xxxi. 15) ; according to Ges. inf. Kal. — Vers. 5-7.
Strengthened by this promise, Jacob went into Egypt with
children and Children's children, his sons driving their aged
father together with their wives and children in the carriages
sent by Pharaoh, and taking their flocks with all the possessions
that they had acquired in Canaan.1
Vers. 8-27. The size of Jacob's family, which was to grow
into a great nation, is given here, with evident allusion to the
fulfilment of the divine promise with which he went into Egypt.
The list of names includes not merely the " sons of Israel" in
the stricter sense ; but, as is added immediately afterwards,
" Jacob and his sons" or, as the closing formula expresses it (ver.
27), "all the souls of the house of Jacob, icho came into Egypt"
(nxsn for HK2 ~\m, Ges. § 109), including the patriarch himself,
and Joseph with his two sons, who were born before Jacob's ar-
rival in Egypt. If we reckon these, the house of Jacob consisted
of 70 souls ; and apart from these, of 66, besides his sons' wives.
The sons are arranged according to the four mothers. Of Leah
1 Such a scene as this, with the emigrants taking their goods laden upon
asses, and even two children in panniers upon an ass's back, may be seen
depicted upon a tomb at Beni Hassan, which might represent the immigra-
tion of Israel, although it cannot be directly connected with it. (See the
particulars in Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books of Moses.)
370 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
there are given 6 sons, 23 grandsons, 2 great-grandsons (sons of
Pharez, whereas Er and Onan, the sons of Judah who died in
Canaan, are not reckoned), and 1 daughter, Dinah, who re-
mained unmarried, and was therefore an independent member
of the house of Jacob; in all, therefore, 6+23 + 2 + 1 = 32,
or with Jacob, 33 souls. Of Zilpah, Leah's maid, there are
mentioned 2 sons, 11 grandsons, 2 great-grandsons, and 1
daughter (who is reckoned like Dinah, both here and Num.
xxvi. 46, for some special reason, which is not particularly de-
scribed) ; in all, 2 + 11 + 2 + 1 = 16 souls. Of Rachel, " Jacob's
(favourite) wife," 2 sons and 12 grandsons are named, of whom,
according to Num. xxvi. 40, two were great-grandsons, = 14
souls ; and of Rachel's maid Bilhah, 2 sons and 5 grandsons =
7 souls. The whole number therefore was 33 + 16+ 14 + 7 =
70.1 The wives of Jacob's sons are neither mentioned by name
nor reckoned, because the families of Israel were not founded
by them, but by their husbands alone. Nor is their parentage
given either here or anywhere else. It is merely casually that
one of the sons of Simeon is called the son of a Canaanitish
woman (ver. 10) ; from which it may be inferred that it was quite
an exceptional thing for the sons of Jacob to take their wives
from among the Canaanites, and that as a rule they were chosen
from their paternal relations in Mesopotamia ; besides whom,
there were also their other relations, the families of Ishmael,
Keturah, and Edom. Of the "daughters of Jacob" also, and
the "daughters of his sons," none are mentioned except Dinah
and Serah the daughter of Asher, because they were not the
founders of separate houses.
If we look more closely into the list itself, the first thing
which strikes us is that Pharez, one of the twin-sons of Judah,
who were not born till after the sale of Joseph, should already
have had tw^o sons. Supposing that Judah' s marriage to the
1 Instead of the number 70 given here, Ex. i. 5, and Deut. x. 22,
Stephen speaks of 75 (Acts vii. 14), according to the LXX., which has the
number 75 both here and Ex. i. 5, on account of the words which follow
the nanus of Manasseh and Ephraim in ver. 20: iyivovTO Oi viol Nccvxac?,,
ov; tTi>.i» xurifi ij t, aAXaxi) i] 2i^o«, rov Nx%i'p' Mx-/,ip 0i iy'i>jvt\ai rov Ycc-
X««3. viol Oi 'Etppctt'/x, uOshfov Mxvxaar,' lovra.'hxoi.p kcii Tuup. viol 3; lov-
ru'hxd.fi- 'V.ouft: and which are interpolated by conjecture from chap. 1. 23,
ami Num. xxvi. 29, 85, and 36 (33, 39, and 40), these three grandsons and
two great-grandsons of Joseph being reckoned in.
CHAP. XLVI. 8-27. 371
daughter of Shuali the Canaanite occurred, notwithstanding
the reasons advanced to the contrary in chap, xxxviii., before the
sale of Joseph, and shortly after the return of Jacob to Canaan,
during the time of his sojourn at Shechem (xxxiii. 18), it can-
not have taken place more than five, or at the most six, years
before Joseph was sold; for Judah was only three years older
than Joseph, and was not more than 20 years old, therefore, at
the time of his sale. But even then there would not be more
than 28 years between Judah' s marriage and Jacob's removal to
Egypt; so that Pharez would only be about 11 years old, since
he could not have been born till about 17 years after Judah' s
marriage, and at that age he could not have had two sons.
Judah, again, could not have taken four sons with him into
Egypt, since he had at the most only two sons a year before
their removal (xlii. 37) ; unless indeed we adopt the extremely
improbable hypothesis, that two other sons were born within
the space of 11 or 12 months, either as twins, or one after the
other. Still less could Benjamin, who was only 23 or 24 years
old at the time (vid. pp. 311 and 319), have had 10 sons already,
or, as Num. xxvi. 38-40 shows, eight sons and two grandsons.
From all this it necessarily follows, that in the list before us
grandsons and great-grandsons of Jacob are named who were
born afterwards in Egypt, and who, therefore, according to a
view which we frequently meet with in the Old Testament,
though strange to our modes of thought, came into Egypt in
lumbis patrum. That the list is really intended to be so under-
stood, is undoubtedly evident from a comparison of the " sons
of Israel " (ver. 8), whose names it gives, with the description
given in Num. xxvi. of the whole community of the sons of
Israel according to their fathers' houses, or their tribes and
families. In the account of the families of Israel at the time
of Moses, which is given there, we find, with slight deviations,
all the grandsons and great-grandsons of Jacob whose names
occur in this chapter, mentioned as the founders of the families,
into which the twelve tribes of Israel were subdivided in Moses'
days. The deviations are partly in form, partly in substance.
To the former belong the differences in particular names, which
are sometimes only different forms of the same name; e.g. Jemuel
and Zohar (ver. 10), for Nemuel and Zerah (Num. xxvi. 12, 13);
Ziphion and Arodi (ver. 16), for Zephon and Arod (Num. xxvi.
372 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
lf> and 17); Huppira (ver. 21) for Hupham (Num. xxvi. 39);
Ehi (ver. 21), an abbreviation of Ahiram (Xum. xxvi. 38) :
sometimes different names of the same person ; viz. Ezbon (ver.
16) and Ozni (Num. xxvi. 16); Muppim (ver. 21) and Slmpliam
(Num. xxvi. 39) ; Husliim (ver. 23) and Shuham (Num. xxvi.
42). Among the differences in substance, the first to be noticed
is the fact, that in Num. xxvi. Simeon's son Ohad, Asher's son
Ishuah, and three of Benjamin's sons, Becher, Gera, and Kosh,
are missing from the founders of families, probably for no other
reason than that they either died childless, or did not leave a
sufficient number of children to form independent families.
With the exception of these, according to Num. xxvi., all the
grandsons and great-grandsons of Jacob mentioned in this chap-
ter were founders of families in existence in Moses' time. From
this it is obvious that our list is intended to contain, not merely
the sons and grandsons of Jacob, who were already born when
he went down to Egypt, but in addition to the sons, who were
the heads of the twelve tribes of the nation, all the grandsons
and great-grandsons who became the founders of mislipachoth,
i.e. of independent families, and who on that account took the
place or were advanced into the position of the grandsons of
Jacob, so far as the national organization was concerned.
On no other hypothesis can we explain the fact, that in the
time of Moses there was not one of the twelve tribes, except the
double tribe of Joseph, in which there were families existing,
that had descended from either grandsons or great-grandsons of
Jacob who are not already mentioned in this list. As it is quite
inconceivable that no more sons should have been born to Jacob's
sons after their removal into Egypt, so is it equally inconceiv-
able, that all the sons born in Egypt either died childless, or
founded no families. The rule by which the nation descending
from the sons of Jacob was divided into tribes and families
(mishpachotli) according to the order of birth was this, that
as the twelve sons founded the twelve tribes, so their sons, i.e.
Jacob's grandsons, were the founders of the families into which
the tribes were subdivided, unless these grandsons died without
leaving children, or did not leave a sufficient number of male
descendants to form independent families, or the natural rule
for the formation of tribes and families was set aside by other
events or causes. On this hypothesis we can also explain the
CHAP. XLVI. 8-27. 373
other real differences between this list and Num. xxvi. ; viz. the
fact that, according to Num. xxvi. 40, two of the sons of Benja-
min mentioned in ver. 21,Naaman and Ard, were his grandsons,
sons of Bel ah; and also the circumstance, that in ver. 20 only the
two sons of Joseph, who were already born when Jacob arrived
in Egypt, are mentioned, viz. Manasseh and Ephraim, and none
of the sons who were born to him afterwards (xlviii. 6). The
two grandsons of Benjamin could be reckoned among his sons
in our list, because they founded independent families just like
the sons. And of the sons of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim
alone could be admitted into our list, because they were elevated
above the sons born to Joseph afterwards, by the fact that shortly
before Jacob's death he adopted them as his own sons and thus
raised them to the rank of heads of tribes ; so that wherever
Joseph's descendants are reckoned as one tribe (e.g. Josh. xvi. 1,
4), Manasseh and Ephraim form the main divisions, or leading
families of the tribe of Joseph, the subdivisions of which were
founded partly by their brothers who were born afterwards, and
partly by their sons and grandsons. Consequently the omission
of the sons born afterwards, and the grandsons of Joseph, from
whom the families of the two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who
were elevated into tribes, descended, forms only an apparent
and not a real exception to the general rule, that this list
mentions all the grandsons of Jacob who founded the families of
the twelve tribes, without regard to the question whether they
were born before or after the removal of Jacob's house to Egypt,
since this distinction was of no importance to the main purpose
of our list. That this was the design of our list, is still further
confirmed by a comparison of Ex. i. 5 and Deut. x. 22, where
the seventy souls of the house of Jacob which went into Egypt
are said to constitute the seed which, under the blessing of the
Lord, had grown into the numerous people that Moses led out
of Egypt, to take possession of the land of promise. From this
point of view it was a natural thing to describe the seed of the
nation, which grew up in tribes and families, in such a way as to
give the germs and roots of all the tribes and families of the
whole nation; i.e. not merely the grandsons who were born before
the migration, but also the grandsons and great-grandsons who
were born in Egypt, and became founders of independent
families. By thus embracing all the founders of tribes and
374 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
families, the significant number 70 was obtained, in which the
number 7 (formed of the divine number 3, and the world number
4, as the seal of the covenant relation between God and Israel) is
multiplied by the number 10, as the seal of completeness, so as
to express the fact that these 70 souls comprehended the whole
of the nation of God.1
Vers. 28-34. This list of the house of Jacob is followed by an
account of the arrival in Egypt. — Ver. 28. Jacob sent his son
Judah before him to Joseph, " to show (rnii"1?) before him to
Goshen;" i.e. to obtain from Joseph the necessary instructions
as to the place of their settlement, and then to act as guide to
Goshen. — Ver. 29. As soon as they had arrived, Joseph had his
chariot made ready to go up to Goshen and meet his father (?JW
applied to a journey from the interior to the desert or Canaan),
and "showed himself to him there {lit. he appeared to him ; n^,
which is generally used only of the appearance of God, is selected
here to indicate the glory in which Joseph came to meet his
father) ; and fell upon his neck, continuing (lij?) upon his neck
{i.e. in his embrace) weeping." — Ver. 30. Then Israel said to
Joseph : " Now (DJ^n lit. this time) will I die, after I have seen
thy face, that thou (art) still alive."— Vers. 31, 32. But Joseph
told his brethren and his father's house (his family) that he
would go up to Pharaoh (n?J? here used of going to the court, as
an ideal ascent), to announce the arrival of his relations, who
were njjpip ""{MS "keepers of flocks," and had brought their sheep
and oxen and all their possessions with them. — Vers. 33, 34.
At the same time Joseph gave these instructions to his brethren,
in case Pharaoh should send for them and inquire about their
occupation : " Say, Thy servants have been keepers of cattle
from our youth even until now, we like our fathers ; that ye
may dwell in the land of Goshen ; for every shepherd is an
abomination of the Egyptians." This last remark formed part
of Joseph's words, and contained the reason why his brethren
should describe themselves to Pharaoh as shepherds from of
old, namely, that they might receive Goshen as their dwelling-
place, and that their national and religious independence might
1 This was the manner in which the earlier theologians solved the actual
difficulties connected with our list ; and this solution has been adopted and
defended against the objections offered to it by Hengsteriberg (Disserta-
tions) and Kurtz (History of the Old Covenant).
CHAP. XLVII. 1-12. 375
not be endangered by too close an intercourse with the Egyptians.
The dislike of the Egyptians to shepherds arose from the fact,
that the more completely the foundations of the Egyptian state
rested upon agriculture with its perfect organization, the more
did the Egyptians associate the idea of rudeness and barbarism
with the very name of a shepherd. This is not only attested in
various ways by the monuments, on which shepherds are con-
stantly depicted as lanky, withered, distorted, emaciated, and
sometimes almost ghostly figures (Graul, Reise 2, p. 171), but
is confirmed by ancient testimony. According to Herodotus
(2, 47), the swine-herds were the most despised ; but they were
associated with the cow-herds (/3ouk6\ol) in the seven castes of
the Egyptians (Herod. 2, 164), so that Diodorus Siculus (1, 74)
includes all herdsmen in one caste ; according to which the word
(3ov/c6\oLin Herodotus not only denotes cow-herds, but apotiori all
herdsmen, just as we find in the herds depicted upon the monu-
ments, sheep, goats, and rams introduced by thousands, along
with asses and horned cattle.
SETTLEMENT OF ISRAEL IN EGYPT ; THEIR PROSPEROUS CON-
DITION DURING- THE YEARS OF FAMINE. — CHAP. XLVII. 1-27.
Vers. 1-12. When Joseph had announced to Pharaoh the
arrival of his relations in Goshen, he presented five out of the
whole number of his brethren (Vns n^iptp ; on nyj5 see chap. xix.
4) to the king. — Vers. 3 sqq. Pharaoh asked them about their
occupation, and according to Joseph's instructions they replied
that they were herdsmen (|i& njp, the singular of the predicate,
see Ges. § 147c), who had come to sojourn in the land (i^, i.e.
to stay for a time), because the pasture for their flocks had failed
in the land of Canaan on account of the famine. The king
then empowered Joseph to give his father and his brethren a
dwelling (T&pn) in the best part of the land, in the land of
Goshen, and, if he knew any brave men among them, to make
them rulers over the royal herds, which were kept, as we may
infer, in the land of Goshen, as being the best pasture-land. —
Vers. 7-9. Joseph then presented his father to Pharaoh , but
not till after the audience of his brothers had been followed by
the royal permission to settle, for which the old man, who was
bowed down with age, was not in a condition to sue. The pa-
376 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
triarch saluted the king with a blessing, and replied to his inquiry
as to his age, " The days of the years of my pilgrimage are 130
years ; few and sorrowful are the days of my life's years, and have
not reached (the perfect in the presentiment of his approaching
end) the days of the life's years of my fathers in the days of their
pilgrimage? Jacob called his own life and that of his fathers a
pilgrimage (D'HWO), because they had not come into actual pos-
session of the promised land, but had been obliged all their life
long to wander about, unsettled and homeless, in the land pro-
mised to them for an inheritance, as in a strange land. This
pilgrimage was at the same time a figurative representation of
the inconstancy and weariness of the earthly life, in which man
does not attain to that true rest of peace with God and blessed-
ness in His fellowship, for which he was created, and for which
therefore his soul is continually longing (cf. Ps. xxxix. 13, cxix.
19, 54; 1 Chron. xxix. 15). The apostle, therefore, could
justly regard these words as a declaration of the longing of the
patriarchs for the eternal rest of their heavenly fatherland (Heb.
xi. 13-1G). So also Jacob's life was little (pP®) and evil {i.e.
full of toil and trouble) in comparison with the life of his fathers.
For Abraham lived to be 175 years old, and Isaac 180 ; and
neither of them had led a life so agitated, so full of distress and
dangers, of tribulation and anguish, as Jacob had from his first
flight to Haran up to the time of his removal to Egypt.
Ver. 10. After this probably short interview, of which, how-
ever, only the leading incidents are given, Jacob left the king
with a blessing. — Ver. 11. Joseph assigned to his father and his
brethren, according to Pharaoh's command, a possession (nJn*?j
for a dwelling-place in the best part of Egypt, the land of
Raemaes, and provided them with bread, " according to the mouth
of the little ones," i.e. according to the necessities of each family,
answering to the larger or smaller number of their children.
7373 with a double accusative (Ges. § 139). The settlement of
the Israelites is called the land of RaSmses (DDDJHj in pause
DDDjn Ex. i. 11), instead of Goshen, either because the province
of Goshen (reaefx, LXX.) is indicated by the name of its former
capital Raemses {i.e. Ileroopolis, on the site or in the immediate
neighbourhood of the modern -Abu Keisheib, in Wady Tumilat
(vid. Kx. i. 11), or because Israel settled in the vicinity of
RaSmses. The district of Goshen is to be sought in the modern
CHAP. XL VII. 13-27. 377
province of el Sharkiyeli {i.e. the eastern), on the east side of
the Nile, towards Arabia, still the most fertile and productive
province of Egypt (cf. Robinson, Pal. i. 78, 79). For Goshen
was bounded on the east by the desert of Arabia Petrasa, which
stretches away to Philistia (Ex. xiii. 17, cf. 1 Chron. vii. 21)
and is called Teaefi 'Apa/Sia*; in the Septuagint in consequence
(chap. xlv. 10, xlvi. 34), and must have extended westwards to
the Nile, since the Israelites had an abundance of fish (Num.
xi. 5). It probably skirted the Tanitic arm of the Nile, as the
fields of Zoan, i.e. Tanis, are said to have been the scene of the
mighty acts of God in Egypt (Ps. Ixxviii. 12, 43, cf. Num. xiii.
22). In this province Joseph assigned his relations settlements
near to himself (xlv. 10), from which they could quickly and
easily communicate with one another (xlvi. 28, xlviii. 1 sqq.).
Whether he lived at Raemses or not, cannot be determined, just
because the residence of the Pharaoh of that time is not known,
and the notion that it was at Memphis is only based upon utterly
uncertain combinations relating to the Hyksos.
Vers. 13-27. To make the extent of the benefit conferred
by Joseph upon his family, in providing them with the necessary
supplies during the years of famine, all the more apparent, a
description is given of the distress into which the inhabitants of
Egypt and Canaan were plunged by the continuance of the
famine. — Ver. 13. The land of Egypt and the land of Canaan
were exhausted with hunger. — ftm) : from nr6 = HX7, to languish,
to be exhausted, only occumng again in Prov. xxvi. 18, Hithp.
in a secondary sense. — Yer. 14. All the money in both countries
was paid in to Joseph for the purchase of corn, and deposited by
him in Pharaoh's house, i.e. the royal treasury. — Vers. 15 sqq.
When the money wras exhausted, the Egyptians all came to
Joseph with the petition : " Give us bread, why should we die
before thee'' {i.e. so that thou shouldst see us die, when in reality
thou canst support us) % Joseph then offered to accept their
cattle in payment ; and they brought him their herds, in return
for which he provided them that year with bread. ?ru : Piel to
lead, with the secondary meaning, to care for (Ps. xxiii. 2 ; Isa.
xl. 11, etc.) ; hence the signification here, "to maintain." — Vers.
18, 19. When that year had passed (Dnri, as in Ps. cii. 28, to
denote the termination of the year), they came again " the second
year" {i.e. after the money was gone, not the second of the seven
PENT. — VOL. I. 2 B
378 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
years of famine) and said : " We cannot hide it from my lord
("onx, a title similar to your majesty), but the money is all gone,
and the cattle have come to my lord; we have nothing left to offer
to my lord but our bodies and our land" DN *3 is an intensified
'3 following a negation (" but," as in chap, xxxii. 29, etc.), and
is to be understood elliptically ; lit. " for if," sc. we would speak
openly ; not " that because," for the causal signification of EX is
not established. DO with ?N is constructio pr&gnans : " completed
to my lord," i.e. completely handed over to my lord. *ME> "iX'J'J
is the same : " left before my lord," i.e. for us to lay before, or
offer to my lord. " Why should we die before thine eyes, we and
our land! Buy us and our land for bread, that we may be, we
and our land, servants (subject) to Pharaoh; and give seed, that
we may live and not die, and the land become not desolate." In
the first clause rn»3 is transferred per zeugma to the land ; in the
last, the word DOT is used to describe the destruction of the land.
The form pB>H is the same as ?j?n in chap. xvi. 4. — Vers. 20, 21.
Thus Joseph secured the possession of the whole land to Pharaoh
by purchase, and " the people he removed to cities, from one end of
the land of Egypt to the other." D"nj??, not from one city to another,
but " according to (= Kara) the cities ;" so that he distributed
the population of the whole land according to the cities in which
the corn was housed, placing them partly in the cities them-
selves, and partly in the immediate neighbourhood. — Ver. 22.
The lands of the priests Joseph did not buy, " for the priests
had an allowance from Pharaoh, and ate their allowance, which
Pharaoh gave them; therefore they sold not their lands." ph a
fixed allowance of food, as in Prov. xxx. 8 ; Ezek. xvi. 27. This
allowance was granted by Pharaoh probably only during the
years of famine; in any case it was an arrangement which
ceased when the possessions of the priests sufficed for their need,
since, according to Diod. Sic. i. 73, the priests provided the sacri-
fices and the support of both themselves and their servants from
the revenue of their lands ; and with this Herodotus also agrees
(2, 37). — Vers. 23 sqq. Then Joseph said to the people : " Be-
hold I have bought you this day ant! your haul for Pharaoh; there
have ye (NH only found in Ez.ek. xvi. 43 and Dan. ii. 43) seed, and
sow the land; and of the produce ye shall give the fifth for Pharaoh,
and four parts (JlY, as in chap, xliii. 34) shall belong to you for
seed, and for the support of yourselves, your families and children."
CHAP. XLVH. 13-27. 379
The people agreed to this ; and the writer adds (ver. 26), it be-
came a law, in existence to this day (his own time), " with regard
to the land of Egypt for Pharaoh with reference to the fifth,"
i.e. that the fifth of the produce of the land should be paid to
Pharaoh.
Profane writers have given at least an indirect support to
the reality of this political reform of Joseph's. Herodotus, for
example (2, 109), states that king Sesostris divided the land
among the Egyptians, giving every one a square piece of the
same size as his hereditary possession (Kktjpov), and derived his
own revenue from a yearly tax upon them. Diod. Sic. (1, 73),
again, says that all the land in Egypt belonged either to the
priests, to the king, or to the warriors ; and Strabo (xvii. p.
787), that the farmers and traders held rateable land, so that
the peasants were not landowners. On the monuments, too,
the kings, priests, and warriors only are represented as having
landed property (cf. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs i. 263).
The biblical account says nothing about the exemption of the
warriors from taxation and their possession of land, for that was
a later arrangement. According to Herod. 2, 168, every warrior
had received from former kings, as an honourable payment,
twelve choice fields (apovpau) free from taxation, but they were
taken away by the Hephaesto-priest SetJios, a contemporary of
Hezekiah, when he ascended the throne (Herod. 2, 141). But
when Herodotus and Diodorus Sic. attribute to Sesostris the
division of the land into 36 vofioi, and the letting of these for a
yearly payment; these comparatively recent accounts simply
transfer the arrangement, whicli was actually made by Joseph,
to a half-mythical king, to whom the later legends ascribed all
the greater deeds and more important measures of the early
Pharaohs. And so far as Joseph's arrangement itself was
concerned, not only had he the good of the people and the inte-
rests of the king in view, but the people themselves accepted it
as a favour, inasmuch as in a land where the produce was regu-
larly thirty-fold, the cession of a fifth could not be an oppressive
burden. And it is probable that Joseph not only turned the
temporary distress to account by raising the king into the posi-
tion of sole possessor of the land, with the exception of that of
the priests, and bringing the people into a condition of feudal
dependence upon him, but had also a still more comprehensive
380 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
object in view ; viz. to secure the population against the danger
of starvation in case the crops should fail at any future time,
not only by dividing the arable land in equal proportions among
the people generally, but, as has been conjectured, by laying the
foundation for a system of cultivation regulated by laws and
watched over by the state, and possibly also by commencing a
system of artificial irrigation by means of canals, for the pur-
pose of conveying the fertilizing water of the Nile as uniformly
as possible to all parts of the land. (An explanation of this
system is given by Hengstenberg in his Dissertations, from the
Correspondance d* Orient pur Michaud, etc.) To mention either
these or any other plans of a similar kind, did not come within
the scope of the book of Genesis, which restricts itself, in ac-
cordance with its purely religious intention, to a description of
the way in which, during the years of famine, Joseph proved
himself to both the king and people of Egypt to be the true
support of the land, so that in him Israel already became a
saviour of the Gentiles. The measures taken by Joseph are
thus circumstantially described, partly because the relation into
which the Egyptians were brought to their visible king bore a
typical resemblance to the relation in which the Israelites were
placed by the Mosaic constitution to Jehovah, their God-King,
since they also had to give a double tenth, i.e. the fifth of the
produce of their lands, and were in reality only farmers of the
soil which Jehovah had given them in Canaan for a posses-
sion, so that they could uot part with their hereditary possessions
in perpetuity (Lev. xxv. 23) ; and partly also because Joseph's
conduct exhibited in type how God entrusts His servants with
the good things of this earth, in order that they may use them
not only for the preservation of the lives of individuals and
nations, but also for the promotion of the purposes of His king-
dom. For, as is stated in conclusion in ver. 27, not only did
Joseph preserve the lives of the Egyptians, for which they ex-
pressed their acknowledgments (ver. 25), but under his adminis-
tration the house of Israel was able, without suffering any
privations, or being brought into a relation of dependence
towards Pharaoh, to dwell in the hind of Goshen, to establish
itself there (W?K3 as in chap, xxxiv. 10), and to become fruitful
and multiply.
CHAP. XLVII. 28-31, XLVIII. 1-7. 381
JACOB S LAST WISHES. — CHAP. XLVII. 28-31, AND XLVIII.
Vers. 28—31. Jacob lived in Egypt for 17 years. He then
sent for Joseph, as he felt that his death was approaching ; and
having requested him, as a mark of love and faithfulness, not to
bury him in Egypt, but near his fathers in Canaan, he made
him assure him on oath (by putting his hand under his hip, vid.
p. 257) that his wishes should be fulfilled. When Joseph had
taken this oath, " Israel bowed (in worship) upon the bed's head."
He had talked with Joseph while sitting upon the bed; and
when Joseph had promised to fulfil his wish, he turned towards
the head of the bed, so as to lie with his face upon the bed, and
thus worshipped God, thanking Him for granting his wish,
which sprang from living faith in the promises of God ; just as
David also worshipped upon his bed (1 Kings i. 47, 48). The
Vulgate rendering is correct : adoravit Deum conversus ad lectuli
caput. That of the LXX., on the contrary, is irpoaeKvvqaev
'IcrparfK errl rb aicpov rfjs pafihov avrov (i.e. nt§t&!})- and the
Syriac and Itala have the same (cf. Heb. xi. 21). But no fitting
sense can be obtained from this rendering, unless we think of the
staff with which Jacob had gone through life, and, taking avrov
therefore in the sense of avrov, assume that Jacob made use
of the staff to enable him to sit upright in bed, and so prayed,
bent upon or over it, though even then the expression ntoon war\
remains a strange one ; so that unquestionably this rendering
arose from a false reading of riDDn, and is not proved to be cor-
rect by the quotation in Heb. xi. 21. " Adduxit enim LXX. In-
terpr. versionem Apostolus, quod ea turn usitata esset, non quod
lectionem Mam prceferendam judicaret (Calovii Bibl. illustr. ad
h. 1.).
Chap, xlviii. 1-7. Adoption of Joseph's sons. — Vers. 1,
2. After these events, i.e. not long after Jacob's arrangements
for his burial, it was told to Joseph p^NM "one said," cf. ver. 2)
that his father was taken ill ; whereupon Joseph went to him
with his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who were then 18 or
20 years old. On his arrival being announced to Jacob, Israel
made himself strong (collected his strength), and sat up on his
bed. The change of names is as significant here as in chap. xlv.
27, 28. Jacob, enfeebled with age, gathered up his strength for
382 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
a work, which he was about to perform as Israel, the bearer of
the grace of the promise. — Vers. 3 sqq. Referring to the promise
which the Almighty God had given him at Bethel (xxxv. 10 sqq.
cf. xxviii. 13 sqq.), Israel said to Joseph (ver. 5) : "And now thy
two sons, which were born to thee in the land of Egypt, until (before)
I came to thee into Egypt . . . let them be mine; Ephraim and Ma-
nasseh, like Reuben and Simeon (my first and second born), let them
be mine? The promise which Jacob had received empowered the
patriarch to adopt the sons of Joseph in the place of children.
Since the Almighty God had promised him the increase of his
seed into a multitude of peoples, and Canaan as an eternal pos-
session to that seed, he could so incorporate into the number of
his descendants the two sons of Joseph who were born in Egypt
before his arrival, and therefore outside the range of his house,
that they should receive an equal share in the promised inherit-
ance with his own eldest sons. But this privilege was to be re-
stricted to the two first-born sons of Joseph. u Thy descendants"
he proceeds in ver. 6, " tchich thou hast begotten since them, shall
be thine ; by the name of their brethren shall they be called, in their
inheritance ;" i.e. they shall not form tribes of their own with a
separate inheritance, but shall be reckoned as belonging to
Ephraim and Manasseh, and receive their possessions among
these tribes, and in their inheritance. These other sons of
Joseph are not mentioned anywhere; but their descendants are
at any rate included in the families of Ephraim and Manasseh
mentioned in Num. xxvi. 28-37 ; 1 Chron. vii. 14-29. By this
adoption of his two eldest sons, Joseph was placed in the posi-
tion of the first-born, so far as the inheritance was concerned
(1 Chron v. 2). Joseph's mother, who had died so early, was
also honoured thereby. And this explains the allusion made by
Jacob in ver. 7 to his beloved Rachel, the wife of his affections,
and to her death — how she died by his side (j?V), on his return
from Padan (for Padan-Aram, the only place in which it is so
called, cf. xxv. 20), without living to see her first-born exalted
to the position of a saviour to the whole house of Israel
Vers. 8-22. The blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh.
— Vers. 8 sqq. Jacob now for the first time caught sight of
Joseph's sons, who had come with him, and inquired who they
were ; for u the eyes of Israel icere heavy (dim) with age, so that
CHAP. XLVIII. 8-22. 383
he could not see well" (ver. 10). The feeble old man, too, may
not have seen the youths for some years, so that he did not recog-
nise them again. On Joseph's answering, "My sons whom God
hath given me here" he replied, "Bring them to me then (W"Dnp),
that I may bless them ; " and he kissed and embraced them, when
Joseph had brought them near, expressing his joy, that whereas
he never expected to see Joseph's face again, God had per-
mitted him to see his seed, nk") for nix], like teg (xxxi. 28).
?!?S : to decide ; here, to judge, to think. — Vers. 12, 13. Joseph
then, in order to prepare his sons for the reception of the bless-
ing, brought them from between the knees of Israel, who was
sitting with the youths between his knees and embracing them,
and having prostrated himself with his face to the earth, he
came up to his father again, with Ephraim the younger on his
right hand, and Manasseh the elder on the left, so that Ephraim
stood at Jacob's right hand, and Manasseh at his left. — Vers.
14, 15. The patriarch then stretched out his right hand and laid
it upon Ephraim' s head, and placed his left upon the head of
Manasseh (crossing his arms therefore), to bless Joseph in his
sons. " Guiding his hands wittingly ; " i.e. he placed his hands
in this manner intentionally. Laying on the hand, which is
mentioned here for the first time in the Scriptures, was a sym-
bolical sign, by which the person acting transferred to another a
spiritual good, a supersensual power or gift ; it occurs elsewhere
in connection with dedication to an office (Num. xxvii. 18, 23 ;
Deut. xxxiv. 9; Matt. xix. 13; Acts vi. 6, viii. 17, etc.), with the
sacrifices, and with the cures performed by Christ and the
apostles. By the imposition of hands, Jacob transferred to
Joseph in his sons the blessing which he implored for them from
his own and his father's God : " The God (Ha-Elohim) before
whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did ivalk, the God (Ha-
Elohim) who hath fed me (led and provided for me with a
shepherd's faithfulness, Ps. xxiii. 1, xxviii. 9) from my existence
up to this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the
lads." This triple reference to God, in which the Angel who is
placed on an equality with Ha-Elohim cannot possibly be a
created angel, but must be the " Angel of God," i.e. God mani-
fested in the form of the Angel of Jehovah, or the " Angel of
His face" (Tsa. lxiii. 9), contains a foreshadowing of the Trinity,
though only God and the Angel are distinguished, not three
384 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
persons of the divine nature. The God before whom Abraham
and Isaac walked, had proved Himself to Jacob to be " the God
which fed" and "the Angel which redeemed," i.e. according to
the more fully developed revelation of the New Testament, 6 ©eo?
and o A070?, Shepherd and Redeemer. By the singular 'ip.^
(bless, beneclicat) the triple mention of God is resolved into the
unity of the divine nature. Non elicit (Jakob) benedicant, plu-
raliter, nee repetit sed conjungit in uno opere benedicendi tres per-
sonas, Deum Patrem, Deum pastorem et Angelum. Sunt igitur
hi tres unus Deus et unus benedlctor. Idem opus facit Angelus
quod pastor et Deus Patrum (Luther). " Let my name be named
on them, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac," i.e.
not, " they shall bear my name and my fathers'," " dicantur filii
mei et patrum meorum, licet ex te nati sint " (Rosenm.), which
would only be another way of acknowledging his adoption of
them, "nota adoptionis" {Calvin) ; for as the simple mention of
adoption is unsuitable to such a blessing, so the words appended,
"and according to the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac,"
are still less suitable as a periphrasis for adoption. The thought
is rather : the true nature of the patriarchs shall be discerned
and acknowledged in Ephraim and Manasseh ; in them shall
those blessings of grace and salvation be renewed, which Jacob
and his fathers Isaac and Abraham received from God. The
name expressed the nature, and " being called" is equivalent to
" being, and being recognised by what one is." The salvation
promised to the patriarchs related primarily to the multiplication
into a great nation, and the possession of Canaan. Hence
Jacob proceeds : "and let them increase into a multitude in the
midst of the land." nyj: air. Xey., " to increase," from which the
name 3^, a fish, is derived, on account of the remarkable rapidity
with which they multiply. — Vers. 17-19. When Joseph observed
his father placing his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, the
younger son, he laid hold of it to put it upon Manasseh's head,
telling his father at the same time that he was the first-born ;
but Jacob replied, " I know, my son, I knoio : he also (Manasseh)
will become a nation, and toill become great, yet (o?^) as in xxviii.
19) his younger brother will become greater than he, and his seed
will become the fulness of nations." This blessing began to be
fulfilled from the time of the Judges, when the tribe of Ephraim
so increased in extent and power, that it took the lead of the
CHAP. XLVIII. 8-22. 385
northern tribes and became the head of the ten tribes, and its
name acquired equal importance with the name Israel, whereas
under Moses, Manasseh had numbered 20,000 more than
Ephraim (Num. xxvi. 34 and 37). As a result of the promises
received from God, the blessing was not merely a pious wish,
but the actual bestowal of a blessing of prophetic significance
and force. — In ver. 20 the writer sums up the entire act of bless-
ing in the words of the patriarch : " In thee (i.e. Joseph) will
Israel (as a nation) bless, saying : God make thee as Ephraim
and Manasseh " (i.e. Joseph shall be so blessed in his two sons,
that their blessing will become a standing form of benediction in
Israel) ; " and thus he placed Ephraim before Manasseh" viz. in
the position of his hands and the terms of the blessing. Lastly,
(ver. 21) Israel expressed to Joseph his firm faith in the promise,
that God would bring back his descendants after his death into
the land of their fathers (Canaan), and assigned to him a double
portion in the promised land, the conquest of which passed be-
fore his prophetic glance as already accomplished, in order to
insure for the future the inheritance of the adopted sons of
Joseph. U I give thee one ridge of land above thy brethren " (i.e.
above what thy brethren receive, each as a single tribe), " which
I take from the hand of the Amorites with my sword andboiv" (i.e.
by force of arms). As the perfect is used prophetically, trans-
posing the future to the present as being already accomplished,
so the words ^nj?? *1K>X must also be understood prophetically, as
denoting that Jacob would wrest the land from the Amorites,
not in his own person, but in that of his posterity.1 The words
cannot refer to the purchase of the piece of ground at Shechem
(xxxiii. 19), for a purchase could not possibly be called a con-
quest by sword and bow ; and still less to the crime committed
by the sons of Jacob against the inhabitants of Shechem, when
they plundered the town (xxxiv. 25 sqq.), for Jacob could not
1 There is no force in Kurtz's objection, that this gift did not apply to
Joseph as the father of Ephraim and Manasseh, but to Joseph personally ;
for it rests upon the erroneous assumption, that Jacob separated Joseph
from his sons by their adoption. But there is not a word to that effect in
ver. 6, and the very opposite in ver. 15, viz. that Jacob blessed Joseph in
Ephraim and Manasseh. Heim's coujecture, which Kurtz approves, that by
the land given to Joseph we are to understand the high land of Gilead,
which Jacob had conquered from the Amorites, needs no refutation, for it
is purely imaginary.
386 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
possibly have attributed to himself a deed for which he had
pronounced a curse upon Simeon and Levi (xlix. 6, 7), not to
mention the fact, that the plundering of Shechem was not
followed in this instance by the possession of the city, but by
the removal of Jacob from the neighbourhood. "Moreover,
any conquest of territory would have been entirely at variance
with the character of the patriarchal history, which consisted in
the renunciation of all reliance upon human power, and a be-
lieving, devoted trust in the God of the promises" (Delitzsch).
The land, which the patriarchs desired to obtain in Canaan,
they procured not by force of arms, but by legal purchase (cf.
chap. xxiv. and xxxiii. 19). It was to be very different in the
future, when the iniquity of the Amorites was full (xv. 16).
But Jacob called the inheritance, which Joseph was to have in
excess of his brethren, D3t^ {lit. shoulder, or more properly nape,
neck ; here figuratively a ridge, or tract of land), as a play upon
the word Shechem, because he regarded the piece of land pur-
chased at Shechem as a pledge of the future possession of the
whole land. In the piece purchased there, the bones of Joseph
were buried, after the conquest of Canaan (Josh. xxiv. 32) ; and
this was understood in future times, as though Jacob had pre-
sented the piece of ground to Joseph (yid. John iv. 5).
Jacob's blessing and death. — chap. xlix.
Vers. 1-28. The blessing. — Vers. 1, 2. When Jacob had
adopted and blessed the two sons of Joseph, he called his twelve
sons, to make known to them his spiritual bequest. In an ele-
vated and solemn tone he said, " Gather yourselves together, that
I may tell you that which shall befall you {&"$) for rnp^ as in
chap. xlii. 4, 38) at the end of the days! Gather yourselves
together and hear, ye sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel your
father /" The last address of Jacob-Israel to his twelve sons,
which these words introduce, is designated by the historian
(ver. 28) " the blessing," with which " their father blessed them,
every one according to his blessing." This blessing is at the
same time a prophecy. "Every superior and significant life be-
comes prophetic at its close" (Ziegler). But this was especially
the case with the lives of the patriarchs, which were filled and
sustained by the promises and revelations of God. As Isaac in
CHAP. XLIX. 1-28. 387
his blessing (chap, xxvii.) pointed out prophetically to his two
sons, by virtue of divine illumination, the future history of their
families ; " so Jacob, while blessing the twelve, pictured in grand
outlines the lineamenta of the future history of the future nation "
(Ziegler). The groundwork of his prophecy was supplied partly
by the natural character of his twelve sons, and partly by the
divine promise which had been given by the Lord to him and to
his fathers Abraham and Isaac, and that not merely in these two
points, the numerous increase of their seed and the possession of
Canaan, but in its entire scope, by which Israel had been ap-
pointed to be the recipient and medium of salvation for all na-
tions. On this foundation the Spirit of God revealed to the
dying patriarch Israel the future history of his seed, so that
he discerned in the characters of his sons the future develop-
ment of the tribes proceeding from them, and with prophetic
clearness assigned to each of them its position and importance
in the nation into which they were to expand in the promised in-
heritance. Thus he predicted to the sons what would happen to
them " in the last days," lit. " at the end of the days " (eV icrya-
tcov twv rjfiepwv, LXX.), and not merely at some future time.
ITnnx, the opposite of n*tJW}, signifies the end in contrast with
the beginning (Deut. xi. 12 ; Isa. xlvi. 10) ; hence D^OTI rinns in
prophetic language denoted, not the future generally, but the
last future (see Hengstenberg s History of Balaam, pp. 465-467,
transl.), the Messianic age of consummation (Isa. ii, 2 ; Ezek.
xxxviii. 8, 16 ; Jer. xxx. 24, xlviii. 47, xlix. 39, etc. : so also
Num. xxiv. 14 ; Deut. iv. 30), like eV kaya-rov twv r/fiepcov (2
Pet. iii. 3 ; Heb. i. 2), or kv reus ia-^drai,^ rj/xepcus (Acts ii.
17 ; 2 Tim. iii. 1). But we must not restrict " the end of the
days" to the extreme point of the time of completion of the Mes-
sianic kingdom ; it embraces " the whole history of the comple-
tion which underlies the present period of growth," or " the future
as bringing the work of God to its ultimate completion, though
modified according to the particular stage to which the work of
God had advanced in any particular age, the range of vision
opened to that age, and the consequent horizon of the prophet,
which, though not absolutely dependent upon it, was to a certain
extent regulated by it" (Delitzsch).
For the patriarch, who, with his pilgrim-life, had been obliged
in the very evening of his days to leave the soil of the promised
388 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
land and seek a refuge for himself and liis house in Egypt, the
final future, with its realization of the promises of God, com-
menced as soon as the promised land was in the possession of the
twelve tribes descended from his sons. He had already before
his eyes, in his twelve sons with their children and children's
children, the first beginnings of the multiplication of his seed
into a great nation. Moreover, on his departure from Canaan
he had received the promise, that the God of his fathers would
make him into a great nation, and lead him up again to Canaan
(xlvi. 3, 4). To the fulfilment of this promise his thoughts and
hopes, his longings and wishes, were all directed. This consti-
tuted the firm foundation, though by no means the sole and ex-
clusive purport, of his words of blessing. The fact was not, as
Baumgarten and Kurtz suppose, that Jacob regarded the time
of Joshua as that of the completion ; that for him the end was
nothing more than the possession of the promised land by his
seed as the promised nation, so that all the promises pointed to
this, and nothing beyond it was either affirmed or hinted at.
Not a single utterance announces the capture of the promised
land ; not a single one points specially to the time of Joshua.
On the contrary, Jacob presupposes not only the increase of his
sons into powerful tribes, but also the conquest of Canaan, as
already fulfilled ; foretells to his sons, whom he sees in spirit as
populous tribes, growth and prosperity on the soil in their pos-
session ; and dilates upon their relation to one another in Canaan
and to the nations round about, even to the time of their final
subjection to the peaceful sway of Him, from whom the sceptre
of Judah shall never depart. The ultimate future of the patri-
archal blessing, therefore, extends to the ultimate fulfilment of
the divine promises — that is to say, to the completion of the
kingdom of God. The enlightened seer's-eye of the patriarch
surveyed, " as though upon a canvas painted without perspec-
tive," the entire development of Israel from its first foundation
as the nation and kingdom of God till its completion under the
rule of the Prince of Peace, whom the nations would serve in
willing obedience ; and beheld the twelve tribes spreading them-
selves out, each in his inheritance, successfully resisting their
enemies, and finding rest and full satisfaction in the enjoyment
of the blessings of Canaan.
It is in this vision of the future condition of his sons as
CHAP. XLIX. 3, 4. 389
grown into tribes that the prophetic character of the blessing
consists ; not in the prediction of particular historical events, all
of which, on the contrary, with the exception of the prophecy
of Shiloh, fall into the background behind the purely ideal por-
traiture of the peculiarities of the different tribes. The blessing
gives, in short sayings full of bold and thoroughly original pic-
tures, only general outlines of a prophetic character, which are to
receive their definite concrete form from the historical develop-
ment of the tribes in the future ; and throughout it possesses
both in form and substance a certain antique stamp, in which
its genuineness is unmistakeably apparent. Every attack upon
its genuineness has really proceeded from an a jpriori denial ._ of_
all supernatural prophecies, and has been sustained by such mis-
interpretations as the introduction of special historical allusions,
for the purpose of stamping it as a vaticinia ex eventu, and by
other untenable assertions and assumptions ; such, for example,
as that people do not make poetry at so advanced an age or in
the immediate prospect of death, or that the transmission of such
an oration word for word down to the time of Moses is utterly
inconceivable, — objections the emptiness of which has been de-
monstrated in Hengstenberg' 's Christology i. p. 76 (transl.) by
copious citations from the history of the early Arabic poetry.
Vers. 3, 4. Reuben, my first-born thou, my might and first-
fruit of my strength ; pre-eminence in dignity and pre-eminence in
power. — As the first-born, the first sprout of the full virile power
of Jacob, Reuben, according to natural right, was entitled to the
first rank among his brethren, the leadership of the tribes, and a
double share of the inheritance (xxvii. 29 ; Deut. xxi. 17). (HKt? :
elevation, the dignity of the chieftainship ; TJ7, the earlier mode
of pronouncing ty, the authority of the first-born.) But Reu-
ben had forfeited this prerogative. " Effervescence like water —
thou shalt have no preference ; for thou didst ascend thy father s
marriage-bed : then hast thou desecrated ; my couch has he as-
cended" Tns : lit. the boiling over of water, figuratively, the
excitement of lust ; hence the verb is used in Judg. ix. 4, Zeph.
iii. 4, for frivolity and insolent pride. With this predicate Jacob
describes the moral character of Reuben ; and the noun is stronger
than the verb nma of the Samaritan, and njnnK or nymx effer-
buisti, cestuasti of the Sam. Vers., e^vfipiaas of the LXX., and
390 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
to-ep^e'cra? of Symm. "iriin is to be explained by TTP : have no
pre-eminence. His crime was, lying with Bilhah, his father's
concubine (xxxv. 22). r6?n is used absolutely : desecrated hast
thou, sc. what should have been sacred to thee (cf. Lev. xviii. 8).
From this wickedness the injured father turns away with indig-
nation, and passes to the third person as he repeats the words,
" my couch he has ascended." By the withdrawal of the rank
belonging to the first-born, Reuben lost the leadership in Israel ;
so that his tribe attained to no position of influence in the na-
tion (compare the blessing of Moses in Deut. xxxiii. 6). The
leadership was transferred to Judah, the double portion to
Joseph (1 Chron. v. 1, 2), by which, so far as the inheritance
was concerned, the first-born of the beloved Rachel took the
place of the first-born of the slighted Leah ; not, however, ac-
cording to the subjective will of the father, which is condemned
in Deut. xxi. 15 sqq., but according to the leading of God, by
which Joseph had been raised above his brethren, but without
the chieftainship being accorded to him.
Vers. 5-7. " Simeon and Levi are brethren :" emphatically
brethren in the full sense of the word ; not merely as having the
same parents, but in their modes of thought and action. " Wea-
pons of wickedness are their swords." The aira^ \ey. J"n30 is
rendered by Luther, etc., weapons or swords, from "vi3=rn3J to
dig, dig through, pierce : not connected with fid^atpa. L. de
Dieic and others follow the Arabic and iEthiopic versions :
"plans;" but D»n "93, utensils, or instruments, of wickedness,
does not accord with this. Such wickedness had the two brothers
committed upon the inhabitants of Shechem (xxxiv. 25 sqq.),
that Jacob would have no fellowship with it. " Into their coun-
sel come not, my soid ; ivith their assembly let not my honour
unite" TiD, a council, or deliberative consessus. inn, imperf.
of "in* ; "Hi33, like Ps. vii. 6, xvi. 9, etc., of the soul as the noblest
part of man, the centre of his personality as the image of God.
" For in their wrath have they slain men, and in their rcantonness
houghed oxen" The singular nouns "'"S and "litf, in the sense of
indefinite generality, are to be regarded as general rather than
singular, especially as the plural form of both is rarely met
with ; of C;\s*, only in Ps. cxli. 4, Prov. viii. 4, and Isa. liii. 3 ; of
nic»— Dn*,!"', only in IIos. xii. 12. |fr"l : inclination, here in a bad
CHAP. XLIX. 5-7. , 391
sense, wantonness. ">(?y : vevpoKoireiv, to sever the houghs (ten-
dons of the hind feet), — a process by which animals were not
merely lamed, but rendered useless, since the tendon once severed
could never be healed again, whilst as a rule the arteries were
not cut so as to cause the animal to bleed to death (cf. Josh. xi.
6, 9 ; 2 Sam. viii. 4). In chap, xxxiv. 28 it is merely stated
that the cattle of the Shechemites were carried off, not that they
were lamed. But the one is so far from excluding the other, that
it rather includes it in such a case as this, where the sons of
Jacob were more concerned about revenge than booty. Jacob
mentions the latter only, because it was this which most strik-
ingly displayed their criminal wantonness. On this reckless
revenge Jacob pronounces the curse, " Cursed be their anger, for
it was fierce ; and their wrath, for it was cruel : I shall divide them
in Jacob,- and scatter them in Israel? They had joined together
to commit this crime, and as a punishment they should be divided
or scattered in the nation of Israel, should form no independent
or compact tribes. This sentence of the patriarch was so ful-
filled when Canaan was conquered, that on the second number-
ing under Moses, Simeon had become the weakest of all the
tribes (Num. xxvi. 14) ; in Moses' blessing (Deut. xxxiii.) it was
entirely passed over ; and it received no separate assignment of
territory as an inheritance, but merely a number of cities within
the limits of Judah (Josh. xix. 1—9). Its possessions, therefore,
became an insignificant appendage to those of Judah, into
which they were eventually absorbed, as most of the families of
Simeon increased .but little (1 Chron. iv. 27) ; and those which
increased the most emigrated in two detachments, and sought
out settlements for themselves and pasture for their cattle out-
side the limits of the promised land (1 Chron. iv. 38-43). Levi
also received no separate inheritance in the land, but merely a
number of cities to dwell in, scattered throughout the possessions
of his brethren (Josh. xxi. 1-40). But the scattering of Levi
in Israel was changed into a blessing for the other tribes through
its election to the priesthood. Of this transformation of the
curse into a blessing, there is not the slightest intimation in
Jacob's address ; and in this we have a strong proof of its
genuineness. After this honourable change had taken place
under Moses, it would never have occurred to any one to cast
such a reproach upon the forefather of the Levites. How dif-
392 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
ferent is the blessing pronounced by Moses upon Levi (Deut.
xxxiii. 8 sqq.) ! But though Jacob withdrew the rights of primo-
geniture from Reuben, and pronounced a curse upon the crime
of Simeon and Levi, he deprived none of them of their share in
the promised inheritance. They were merely put into the back-
ground because of their sins, but they were not excluded from
the fellowship and call of Israel, and did not lose the blessing
of Abraham, so that their father's utterances with regard to
them might still be regarded as the bestowal of a blessing
(ver. 28).
Vers. 8-12. Judah, the fourth son, was the first to receive
a rich and unmixed blessing, the blessing of inalienable supre-
macy and power. " Judah thou, thee will thy brethren praise!
thy hand in the neck of thy foes! to thee will thy father s sons
bow down!" nnx, thou, is placed first as an absolute noun,
like 'US in chap. xvii. 4, xxiv. 27 ; IVtf* is a play upon rnirp
like rniN in chap. xxix. 35. Judah, according to chap. xxix.
35, signifies : he for whom Jehovah is praised, not merely the
praised one. "This nomen, the patriarch seized as an omen,
and expounded it as a presage of the future history of Judah."
Judah should be in truth all that his name implied (cf. xxvii.
36). Judah had already shown to a certain extent a strong and
noble character, when he proposed to sell Joseph rather than
shed his blood (xxxvii. 26 seq.) ; but still more in the manner in
which he offered himself to his father as a pledge for Benjamin,
and pleaded with Joseph on his behalf (xliii. 9^10, xliv. 16 sqq.);
and it was apparent even in his conduct towards Thamar. In
this manliness and strength there slumbered the germs of the
future development of strength in his tribe. Judah would put
his enemies to flight, grasp them by the neck, and subdue them
(Job xvi. 12, cf. Ex. xxiii. 27, Ps. xviii. 41). Therefore his
brethren would do homage to him : not merely the sons of his
mother, who are mentioned in other places (xxvii. 29 ; Judg.
viii. 19), i.e. the tribes descended from Leah, but the sons of
his father — all the tribes of Israel therefore ; and this was really
the case under David (2 Sam. v. 1, 2, cf. 1 Sam. xviii. 6, 7, and
16). This princely power Judah acquired through his lion-like
nature. — Ver. 9. "A young lion is Judah ; from the prey, my
son, art thou gone up: he has lain down ; like a lion there lie lieth,
CHAP. XLIX. 8-12 393
and like a lioness, who can rouse him up!" Jacob compares
Judah to a young, i.e. growing lion, ripening into its full
strength, as being the "ancestor of the lion-tribe." But he
quickly rises " to a vision of the tribe in the glory of its perfect
strength," and describes it as a lion which, after seizing prey,
ascends to the mountain forests (cf. Song of Sol. iv. 8), and
there lies in majestic quiet, no one daring to disturb it. To in-
tensify the thought, the figure of a lion is followed by that of the
lioness, which is peculiarly fierce in defending its young. The
perfects are prophetic ; and n?y relates not to the growth or
gradual rise of the tribe, but to the ascent of the lion to its lair
upon the mountains. " The passage evidently indicates some-
thing more than Judah's taking the lead in the desert, and in
the wars of the time of the Judges ; and points to the position
which Judah attained through the warlike successes of David "
(Knobel). The correctness of this remark is put beyond ques-
tion by ver. 10, where the figure is carried out still further, but
in literal terms. " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor
the ruler s staff from between his feet, till Shiloh come and the
willing obedience of the nations be to him." The sceptre is the
symbol of regal command, and in its earliest form it was a long
staff, which the king held in his hand when speaking in public
assemblies {e.g. Agamemnon, II. 2, 46, 101) ; and when he sat
upon his throne he rested it between his feet, inclining towards
himself (see the representation of a Persian king in the ruins of
Persepolis, Niebuhr Reisebeschr. ii. 145). Pi?nD the determining
person or thing, hence a commander, legislator, and a com-
mander's or rulers staff (Num. xxi. 18); here in the latter sense,
as the parallels, "sceptre" and "from between his feet," require.
Judah — this is the idea — was to rule, to have the chieftainship,
till Shiloh came, i.e. for even It is evident that the coming of
Shiloh is not to be regarded as terminating the rule of Judah,
from the last clause of the verse, according to which it was only
then that it would attain to dominion over the nations. *3 "W
has not an exclusive signification here, but merely abstracts
what precedes from what follows the given terminus ad quern,
as in chap. xxvi. 13, or like "IBW *W chap, xxviii. 15, Ps. cxii. 8,
or 1J? Ps. ex. 1, and em Matt. v. 18.
But the more precise determination of the thought contained
in ver. 10 is dependent upon our explanation of the word Shiloh.
PENT. — VOL. 1. 2 C
394 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
It cannot be traced, as the Jerusalem Targum and the Rabbins
affirm, to the word ?*& filius with the suffix H = i "his son,"
since such a noun as 7*$ is never met with in Hebrew, and
neither its existence nor the meaning attributed to it can be
inferred from ilw, afterbirth, in Deut. xxviii. 57. Nor can the
paraphrases of Onkelos (donee veniat Messias cujus est regnum),
of the Greek versions (eita? eav eXdv ra arTO/cel/ieva avra>; or u>
airoKeirat, as Aquila and Symmachus appear to have rendered
it), or of the Syriac, etc., afford any real proof, that the defec-
tive form rtbtPj which occurs in 20 MSS., was the original form
of the word, and is to be pointed n?^ for w = V TJ'X. For
apart from the fact, that t? for X;S would be unmeaning here,
and that no such abbreviation can be found in the Pentateuch,
it ought in any case to read Kin w " to whom it (the sceptre)
is due," since w alone could not express this, and an ellipsis of
Kin in such a case would be unparalleled. It only remains
therefore to follow Luther, and trace ' m^ to i"ix;, to be quiet, to
enjoy rest, security. But from this root Shiloh cannot be ex-
plained according to the analogy of such forms as 1^3, Bfo^p.
For these forms constitute no peculiar species, but are merely
derived from the reduplicated forms, as H^i?, which occurs as
well as VW\>, clearly shows; moreover they are none of them
formed from roots of n"?. nyv points to Ji^t', to the formation
of nouns with the termination on, in which the liquids are elimi-
nated, and the remaining vowel i is expressed by H (Ew. § 8-i) :
as for example in the names of places, rw or foj^ a]so ftj»jp (Judg.
xxi. 21 ; Jer. vii. 12) and ri?3 (Josh. xv. 51), with their deriva-
tives ^V (1 Kings xi. 20, xii. 15) and ^3 (2 Sam. xv. 12), also
rfWK (Prov. xxvii. 20) forJftaK (Prov. xv. 11, etc.), clearly prove.
Hence fiPW either arose from |^w («W), or was formed directly
from 7i^ = i"Ptr, like |v3 from Tfc. But if fiT1® is the original form
of the word, nyw cannot be an appellative noun in the sense of
rest, or a place of rest, but must be a proper name. For the
strong termination on loses its n after o only in proper names,
like rtfc&tf, ftao by the side of |to» (Zech. xii. 11) and hh
(Judg. x. 1). n^2N forms no exception to this; for when used
in Prov. xxvii. 20 as a personification of hell, it is really a
proper name. An appellative noun like flT'B', in the sense of
rest, or place of rest, "would be unparalleled in the Hebrew
thesaurus; the nouns used in this sense are 1^, nfe tfbw.
CHAP. XLIX. 8-12. 395
nnwtD." For these reasons even Delitzsch pronounces the appel-
lative rendering, " till rest comes," or till " he comes to a place
of rest," grammatically nnpossihle. Shiloh or Shilo is ^ proper
namejn every other instance in which it is used in the~UlcT
Testament, and was in fact the name of a city belonging to the
tribe of Ephraim, which stood in the midst of the land of
Canaan, upon an eminence above the village of Turmus Aya,
in an elevated valley surrounded by hills, where ruins belong-
ing both to ancient and modern times still bear the name of
Seilun. In this city the tabernacle was pitched on the conquest
of Canaan by the Israelites under Joshua, and there it remained
till the time of Eli (Judg. xviii. 31 ; 1 Sam. i. 3, ii. 12 sqq.),
possibly till the early part of Saul's reign.
Some of the Rabbins supposed our Shiloh to refer to the city.
This opinion has met with the approval of most of the expositors,
from Teller and Eichhom to Tuch, who regard the blessing as a
vaticinium ex eventu, and deny not only its prophetic character,
but for the most part its genuineness. Delitzsch has also decided
in its favour, because Shiloh or Shilo is the name of a town in
every other passage of the Old Testament ; and in 1 Sam. iv.
12, where the name is written as an accusative of direction, the
words are written exactly as they are here. But even if we do
not go so far as Hofmann, and pronounce the rendering " till he
(Judah) come to Shiloh " the most impossible of all renderings,
we must pronounce it utterly irreconcilable with the prophetic
character of the blessing. Even if Shilo existed in Jacob's time
(which can neither be affirmed nor denied), it had acquired no
importance in relation to the lives of the patriarchs, and is not
once referred to in their history ; so that Jacob could only have
pointed to it as the goal and turning point of Judah's supremacy
in consequence of a special revelation from God. But in that
case the special prediction would really have been fulfilled : not
only would Judah have come to Shiloh, but there he would
have found permanent rest, and there would the willing subjec-
tion of the nations to his sceptre have actually taken place.
Now none of these anticipations are confirmed by history. It is
true we read in Josh, xviii. 1, that after the promised land had
been conquered by the defeat of the Canaanites in the south and
north, and its distribution among the tribes of Israel had com-
menced, and was so far accomplished, that Judah and the double
396 THE FIRST COOK OF MOSES.
tribe of Joseph had received their inheritance by lot, the con-
gregation assembled at Shilo, and there erected the tabernacle,
b o t ' '
and it was not till after this had been done, that the partition of
the land was proceeded with and brought to completion. But
although this meeting of the whole congregation at Shilo, and
the erection of the tabernacle there, was generally of significance
as the turning point of the history, it was of equal importance
to all the tribes, and not to Judah alone. If it were to this event
that Jacob's words pointed, they should be rendered, " till they
come to Shiloh," which would be grammatically allowable indeed,
but very improbable with the existing context. And even then
nothing would be gained. For, in the first place, up to the time
of the arrival of the congregation at Shilo, Judah did not possess
the promised rule over the tribes. The tribe of Judah took the
first place in the camp and on the march (Num. ii. 3-9, x. 14) —
formed in fact the van of the army ; but it had no rule, did not
hold the chief command. The sceptre or command was held by
the Levite Moses during the journey through the desert, and by
the Ephraimite Joshua at the conquest and division of Canaan.
Moreover, Shilo itself was not the point at which the leadership
of Judah among the tribes was changed into the command of
nations. Even if the assembling of the congregation of Israel
at Shiloh (Josh, xviii. 1) formed so far a turning point between !
two periods in the history of Israel, that the erection of the
tabernacle for a permanent continuance at Shilo was a tangible i
pledge, that Israel had now gained a firm footing in the promised J
land, had come to rest and peace after a long period of wander-
ing and war, had entered into quiet and peaceful possession of
the land and its blessings, so that Shilo, as its name indicates,
became the resting-place of Israel ; Judah did not acquire the
command over the twelve tribes at that time, nor so long as the I
house of God remained at Shilo, to say nothing of the sub- I
mission of the nations. It was not till after the rejection of
" the abode of Shiloh," at and after the removal of the ark of
the covenant by the Philistines (1 Sam. iv.), with which the
" tabernacle of Joseph" was also rejected, that God selected the
tribe of Judah and chose David (Ps. lxxviii. ti()-72). Hence it
was not till after Shiloh had ceased to be the spiritual centre for
the tribes of Israel, over whom Ephraim had exercised a kind of
rule so long as the central sanctuary of the nation continued in
CHAP. XLIX. 8-12. 397
its inheritance, that by David's election as prince (^3) over
Israel the sceptre and the government over the tribes of Israel
passed over to the tribe of Judah. Had Jacob, therefore^jpro-
mised to his son Judah the sceptre or ruler's staff over the tribes
until he came to Shiloh, he would have uttered no prophecjxbut
simply a pious wish, which would have remained entirely unful-
filled.
With this result we ought not to rest contented ; unless,
indeed, it could be maintained that because Shiloh was ordinarily
the name of a city, it could have no other signification. But just
as many other names of cities are also names of persons, e.g.
Enoch (iv. 17), and Shechem (xxxiv. 2) ; so Shiloh might also
be a personal name, and denote not merely the place of rest, but
the man, or bearer, of rest. We regard Shiloh, therefore, as a
title of the Messiah, in common with the entire Jewish syna-
gogue and the whole Christian Church, in which, although there
may be uncertainty as to the grammatical interpretation of the
word, there is perfect agreement as to the fact that the patriarch
is here proclaiming the coming of the Messiah. " For no objec-
tion can really be sustained against thus regarding it as a per-
sonal name, in closest analogy to rtOsti" (Hofinanii). The asser-
tion that Shiloh cannot be the subject, but must be the object in
this sentence, is as unfounded as the historiological axiom, " that
the expectation of a personal Messiah was perfectly foreign to
the patriarchal age, and must have been foreign from the very
nature of that age," with which Kurtz sets aside the only explan-
ation of the word which is grammatically admissible as relating
to the personal Messiah, thus deciding, by means of a priori
assumptions which completely overthrow the supernaturally un-
fettered character of prophecy, and from a one-sided view of
the patriarchal age and history, how much the patriarch Jacob
ought to have been able to prophesy. The expectation of a per-
sonal Saviour did not arise for the first time with Moses, Joshua,
and David, or first obtain its definite form after one man had
risen up as the deliverer and redeemer, the leader and ruler of
the whole nation, but was contained in the germ in the promise
of the seed of the woman, and in the blessing of Noah upon
Shem. It was then still further expanded in the promises of God
to the patriarchs — " I will bless thee ; be a blessing, and in thee
shall all the families of the earth be blessed," — by which Abraham,
398 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Isaac, and Jacob (not merely the nation to descend from them)
were chosen as the personal bearers of that salvation, which was
to be conveyed by them through their seed to all nations. "When
the patriarchal monad was expanded into a dodekad, and Jacob
had before him in his twelve sons the founders of the twelve-
tribed nation, the question naturally arose, from which of the
twelve tribes would the promised Saviour proceed? Reuben
had forfeited the right of primogeniture by his incest, and it
could not pass over to either Simeon or Levi on account of their
crime against the Shechemites. Consequently the dying patri-
arch transferred, both by his blessing and prophecy, the chief-
tainship which belonged to the first-born and the blessing of the
promise to his fourth son Judah, having already, by the adoption
of Joseph's sons, transferred to Joseph the double_jnheritance
associated with the birthright. Judah was to bear the sceptre
with victorious lion-courage, until in the future Shiloh the obe-
dience of the nations came to him, and his rule over the tribes
was widened into the peaceful government of the world. It is
true that it is not expressly stated that Shiloh was to descend
from Judah ; but this follows as a matter of course from the
context, i.e. from the fact, that after the description of Judah as
an invincible lion, the cessation of his rule, or the transference
of it to another tribe, could not be imagined as possible, and the
thought lies upon the surface, that the dominion of Judah was
to be perfected in the appearance of Shiloh.
Thus the personal interpretation of Shiloh stands in the most
beautiful harmony with the constant progress of the same reve-
lation. To Shiloh will the nations belong, i1?! refers back to
T\yv. nnp^ which only occurs again in Prov. xxx. 17, from
'"inpi with dac/esh forte euphon., denotes the obedience of a son,
willing obedience; and D^V in this connection cannot refer to
the associated tribes, for Judah bears the sceptre over the tribes
of Israel before the coming of Shiloh, but to the nations uni-
versally. These will render willing obedience to Shiloh, because,
as a nnn of rest He brings them rest and pence.
As previous promises prepared the way for our prophecy,
so was it still further unfolded by the Messianic prophecies
which followed ; and this, together with the gradual advance
towards fulfilment, places the personal meaning of Shiloh beyond
all possible doubt. — In the order of time, the prophecy of Balaam
CHAP. XLIX. 8-12
399
stands next, where not only Jacob's proclamation of the lion-
nature of Judah is transferred to Israel as a nation (Num. xxiii.
24, xxiv. 9), but the figure of the sceptre from Israel, i.e. the
ruler or king proceeding from Israel, who will smite all his foes
(xxiv. 17), is taken verbatim from vers. 9, 10 of this address.
In the sayings of Balaam, the tribe of Judah recedes behind the
unity of the nation. For although, both in the camp and on
the march, Judah took the first place among the tribes (Num.
ii. 2, 3, vii, 12, x. 14), this rank was no real fulfilment of
Jacob's blessing, but a symbol and pledge of its destination to
be the champion and ruler over the tribes. As champion, even
after the death of Joshua, Judah opened the attack by divine
direction upon the Canaanites who were still left in the land
(Judg. i. 1 sqq.), and also the war against Benjamin (Judg. xx.
18). It-was also a sign of the future supremacy of Judah, that
the first judge and deliverer from the power of their oppressors
was raised up to Israel from the tribe of Judah in the person of
the Kenizzite Othniel (Judg. iii. 9 sqq.). From that time for-
ward Judah took no lead among the tribes for several centuries,
but rather fell back behind Ephraim, until by the election of
David as king over all Israel, Judah was raised to the rank of
ruling tribe, and received the sceptre over all the rest (1 Chron.
xxviii. 4). In David, Judah grew strong (1 Chron. v. 2), and
became a conquering lion, whom no one dared to excite. With
the courage and strength of a lion, David brought under his
sceptre all the enemies of Israel round about. But when God
had given him rest, and he desired to build a house to the Lord,
he received a promise through the prophet Nathan that Jehovah
would raise up his seed after him, and establish the throne of his
kingdom for ever (2 Sam. vii. 13 sqq.). " Behold, a son shall
be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest ; and I (Jehovah)
will give him rest from all his enemies round about ; for Solo-
mon (i.e. Friederich, Frederick, the peaceful one) shall be his
name, and I will give peace and rest unto Israel in his days . . .
and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for
ever." Just as Jacob's prophecy was so far fulfilled in David,
that Judah had received the sceptre over the tribes of Israel,
and had led them to victory over all their foes ; and David upon
the basis of this first fulfilment received through Nathan the
divine promise, that the sceptre should not depart from his
400 THE l'TKST BOOK OF MOSES.
house, and therefore not from Jiulah ; so the. commencement of
the coining of SJiiluh received its first fulfilment in the peaceful
sway of Solomon, even if David did not give his son the name
Solomon with an allusion to the predicted Shiloh, which one
miffht infer from the sameness in the meaning of ririb'j and
n'T'ty when compared with the explanation given of the name
Solomon in 1 Chron. xxii. 9, 10. But Solomon was not the true
Shiloh. His peaceful sway was transitory, like the repose which
Israel enjoyed under Joshua at the erection of the tabernacle at
Shiloh (Josh. xi. 23, xiv. 15, xxi. 44) ; moreover it extended
over Israel alone. The willing obedience of the nations he did
not secure ; Jehovah only gave rest from his enemies round
about in his days, i.e. during his life.
But this first imperfect fulfilment furnished a pledge of the
complete fulfilment in the future, so that Solomon himself, dis-
cerning in spirit the typical character of his peaceful reign, sang
of the King's Son who should have dominion from sea to sea, and
from the river to the ends of the earth, before whom all kings
should bow, and whom all nations should serve (Ps. lxxii.) ; and
the prophets after Solomon prophesied of the Prince of Peace,
who should increase government and peace without end upon
the throne of David, and of the sprout out of the rod of Jesse,
whom the nations should seek (Isa. ix. 5, G, xi. 1-10) ; and lastly,
Ezekiel, when predicting the downfall of the Davidic kingdom,
prophesied that this overthrow would last until He should come
to whom the right belonged, and to whom Jehovah would give
it (Ezek. xxi. 27). Since Ezekiel in his words, " till He come
to whom the right belongs," takes up, as is generally admitted,
our prophecy " till Shiloh come," and expands it still further in
harmony with the purpose of his announcement, more especially
from Ps. lxxii. 1-5, where righteousness and judgment are men-
tioned as the foundation of the peace which the King's Son would
bring ; he not only confirms the correctness of the personal and
Messianic explanation of the word Shiloh, but shows that Jacob's
prophecy of the sceptre not passing from Judah till Shiloh came,
did not preclude a temporary loss of power. Thus all prophe-
cies, and all the promises of God, in fact, are so fulfilled, as not
to preclude the punishment of the sins of the elect, and yet, not-
withstanding that punishment, assuredly and completely attain
to their ultimate fulfilment. And thus did the kingdom of
CHAP. XLIX. 8-12. 401
Judah arise from its temporary overthrow to a new and imperish-
able glory in Jesus Christ (Heb. vii. 14), who conquers all foes
as the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev. v. 5), and reigns as the
true Prince of Peace, as " our peace" (Eph. ii. 14), forever
and ever.
In vers. 11 and 12 Jacob finishes his blessing on Judah by
depicting the abundance of his possessions in the promised land.
" Binding his she-ass to the vine, and to the choice vine his ass's
colt ; he washes his garment in wine, and his cloak in the blood of
the grape : dull are the eyes with wine, and white the teeth with
milk" The participle "'"ipi* has the old connecting vowel, i,
before a word with a preposition (like Isa. xxii. 16 ; Mic. vii.
14, etc.) ; and *32 in the construct state, as in chap. xxxi. 39.
The subject is not Shiloh, but Judah, to whom the whole bless-
ing applies. The former would only be possible, if the fathers
and Luther were right in regarding the whole as an allegorical
description of Christ, or if Hofmanns opinion were correct, that
it would be quite unsuitable to describe Judah, the lion-like
warrior and ruler, as binding his ass to a vine, coming so peace-
fully upon his ass, and remaining in his vineyard. But are
lion-like courage and strength irreconcilable with a readiness
for peace? Besides, the notion that riding upon an ass is an
image of a peaceful disposition seems quite unwarranted; and
the supposition that the ass is introduced as an animal of peace,
in contrast with the war-horse, is founded upon Zech. ix. 9, and
applied to the words of the patriarch in a most unhistorical
manner. This contrast did not exist till a much later period,
when the Israelites and Canaanites had introduced war-horses,
and is not applicable at all to the age and circumstances of the
patriarchs, since at that time the only animals there were to ride,
beside camels, were asses and she-asses (xxii. 3 cf. Ex. iv. 20,
Num. xxii. 21) ; and even in the time of the Judges, and down
to David's time, riding upon asses was a distinction of nobility
or superior rank (Judg. i. 14, x. 4, xii. 14; 2 Sam. xix. 27).
Lastly, even in vers. 9 and 10 Judah is not depicted as a lion
eager for prey, or as loving war and engaged in constant strife,
but, according to Hofmanns own words, " as having attained,
even before the coming of Shiloh, to a rest acquired by victory
over surrounding foes, and as seated in his place with the
insignia of his dominion." Now, when Judah's conflicts are
402 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
over, and lie has come to rest, he also may bind his ass to the
vine and enjoy in peaceful repose the abundance of his inherit-
ance. Of wine and milk, the most valuable productions of
his land, he will have such a superabundance, that, as Jacob
hyperbolically expresses it, he may wash his clothes in the blood
of the grape, and enjoy them so plentifully, that his eyes shall
be inflamed with wine, and his teeth become white with milk.1
The soil of Judah produced the best wine in Canaan, near
Hebron and Engedi (Num. xiii. 23, 24 ; Song of Sol. i. 14 ;
2 Chron. xxvi. 10 cf. Joel i. 7 sqq.), and had excellent pas-
ture land in the desert by Tekoah and Carmel, to the south of
Hebron (1 Sam. xxv. 2 ; Amos i. 1 ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 10). nfriD :
contracted from nfrilp, from <"I1D to envelope, synonymous with
mpD a veil (Ex. xxxiv. 33).
Ver. 13. Zebulun, to the shore of the ocean will he dwell,
and indeed (KVTj isque) towards the coast of ships, and his side
toivards Zidon (directed up to Zidon)." This blessing on Leah's
sixth son interprets the name Zebulun (i.e. dwelling) as an omen,
not so much to show the tribe its dwelling-place in Canaan, as
to point out the blessing which it would receive from the situa-
tion of its inheritance (compare Deut. xxxiii. 19). So far as the
territory allotted to the tribe of Zebulun under Joshua can be
ascertained from the boundaries and towns mentioned in Josh.
xix. 10—16, it neither reached to the Mediterranean, nor touched
directly upon Zidon (see my Coram, on Joshua). It really lay
between the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean, near to both,
but separated from the former by Naphtali, from the latter by
Asher. So far was this announcement, therefore, from being a
vaticinium ex eventu taken from the geographical position of the
tribe, that it contains a decided testimony to the fact that
Jacob's blessing was not written after the time of Joshua.
D"1^ denotes, not the two seas mentioned above, but, as Judg.
1 Jam de situ regionis loquitur, qux sorte Jiliis J mix obligit. Signijicat
autem tantam illic fore vitium copiam, ut passim obvise prostent non secus
atque alibi vepres vel infrugifera arbusta. Nam quum ad sepes ligari soleant
(Mint, vites ml hunc contemptibilem usum deputat. Eodem pcrtinct qux sequun-
tnr hyperbolica loquendi formx, quod Judas lavabit vestem suarn in vi>a\ ct
oculis erit rubicundus. Tantam enim vini abundantiam fore intelligit, ut
promiscue ml lotiones, perinde ut aqua effundi qucat sine magna dispendio;
assiduo autem largioreque iUiuspotu rubedincm contracturisint oculi. Calvin.
CHAP. XLIX. 14, 15. 403
v. 17 proves, the Mediterranean, as a great ocean (chap. i. 10).
" The coast of ships : " i.e. where ships are unloaded, and land
the treasures of the distant parts of the world for the inhabi-
tants of the maritime and inland provinces (Deut. xxxiii. 19).
Zidon, as the old capital, stands for Phoenicia itself.
Vers. 14 and 15. " Issachar is a bony ass, lying between the
hurdles. He saio that rest was a good (210 subst.), and the land
that it was -pleasant ; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became
a servant unto tribute." The foundation of this award also lies
in the name "£>B> $&\, which is probably interpreted with refer-
ence to the character of Issachar, and with an allusion to the
relation between "OB> and *1^^, a daily labourer, as an indication
of the character and fate of his tribe. " Ease at the cost of
liberty will be the characteristic of the tribe of Issachar" (De-
litzsch). The simile of a bony, i.e. strongly-built ass, particularly
adapted for carrying burdens, pointed to the fact that this tribe
would content itself with material good, devote itself to the
labour and burden of agriculture, and not strive after political
power and rule. The figure also indicated " that Issachar would
become a robust, powerful race of men, and receive a pleasant
inheritance which would invite to comfortable repose." (Accord-
ing to Jos. de bell. jud. iii. 3, 2, Lower Galilee, with the fruitful
table land of Jezreel, was attractive even to rbv rj/acrTa 777?
(piXoirovov). Hence, even if the simile of a bony ass contained
nothing contemptible, it did not contribute to Issacluir's glory.
Like an idle beast of burden, he would rather submit to the
yoke and be forced to do the work of a slave, than risk his
possessions and his peace in the struggle for liberty. To bend
the shoulder to the yoke, to come down to carrying burdens
and become a mere serf, was unworthy of Israel, the nation
of God that was called to rule, however it might befit its foes,
especially the Canaanites upon whom the curse of slavery
rested (Deut. xx. 11 ; Josh. xvi. 10 ; 1 Kings ix. 20, 21 ; Isa.
x. 27). This was probably also the reason why Issachar was
noticed last among the sons of Leah. In the time of the
Judges, however, Issachar acquired renown for heroic bravery
in connection with Zebulun (Judg. v. 14, 15, 18). The sons
of Leah are followed by the four sons of the two maids, ar-
ranged, not according to their mothers or their ages, but accord
404 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
ing to the blessing pronounced upon them, so that the two
warlike tribes stand first.
Vers. 16 and 17. u Dan will procure Ids people justice as one
of the tribes of Israel. Let Dan become a serpent by the way, a
homed adder in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, so that its
rider falls back.'" Although only the son of a maid-servant,
Dan would not be behind the other tribes of Israel, but act
according to his name (|*TJ fj), and as much as any other of the
tribes procure justice to his people (i.e. to the people of Israel ;
not to his own tribe, as Diestel supposes). There is no allusion
in these words to the office of judge which was held by Samson ;
they merely describe the character of the tribe, although this
character came out in the expedition of a portion of the Danites
to Laish in the north of Canaan, a description of which is given
in Judg. xviii., as well as in the "romantic chivalry of the brave,
gigantic Samson, when with the cunning of the serpent he
overthrew the mightiest foes" (Del.). WB$ : KepdaT7]<;, the
very poisonous horned serpent, which is of the colour of the
sand, and as it lies upon the ground, merely stretching out its
feelers, inflicts a fatal wound upon any who may tread upon it
unawares (Diod. Sic. 3, 49 ; Pliny, 8, 23).
Ver. 18. But this manifestation of strength, which Jacob
expected from Dan and promised prophetically, presupposed
that severe conflicts awaited the Israelites. For these conflicts
Jacob furnished his sons with both shield and sword in the ejacu-
latory prayer, "I wait for Thy salvation, 0 Jehovah /" which was
not a prayer for his own soul and its speedy redemption from all
evil, but in which, as Calvin has strikingly shown, he expressed
his confidence that his descendants would receive the help of his
God. Accordingly, the later Targums (Jerusalem and Jonathan)
interpret these words as Messianic, but with a special reference
to Samson, and paraphrase ver. 18 thus : " Not for the deliver-
ance of Gideon, the son of Joash, does my soul wait, for that is
temporary; and not for the redemption of Samson, for that is
transitory; but for the redemption of the Messiah, the Son of
David, which Thou through Thy word hast promised to bring
to Thy people the children of Israel : for this Thy redemption
my soul waits." !
1 This is the reading according to the text of the Jerusalem Targum, in
the Loudon Polyglot as corrected from the extracts of Fagius iu the Critt.
CHAP. XLIX. 19-21. 405
Ver. 19. "Gad — a press presses him, but he presses the
heel." The name Gad reminds the patriarch of "Ti3 to press, and
ina the pressing host, warlike host, which invades the land.
The attacks of such hosts Gad will bravely withstand, and press
their heel, i.e. put them to flight and bravely pursue them, not
smite their rear-guard ; for 3pV does not signify the rear-guard
even in Josh. viii. 13, but only the reserves (see my commentary
on the passage). The blessing, which is formed from a triple
alliteration of the name Gad, contains no such special allusions
to historical events as to enable us to interpret it historically,
although the account in 1 Chron. v. 18 sqq. proves that the
Gadites displayed, wherever it was needed, the bravery promised
them by Jacob. Compare with this 1 Chron. xii. 8—15, where
the Gadites who come to David are compared to lions, and their
swiftness to that of roes.
Ver. 20. " Out of Asher (cometh) fat, his bread, and he
yieldeth royal dainties." ton? is in apposition to ^^, and the
suffix is to be emphasized : the fat, which comes from him, is
his bread, his own food. The saying indicates a very fruitful
soil. Asher received as his inheritance the lowlands of Carmel
on the Mediterranean as far as the territory of Tyre, one of the
most fertile parts of Canaan, abounding in wheat and oil, with
which Solomon supplied the household of king Hiram (1 Kings
v. 11).
Ver. 21. "Naphtali is a hind let loose, icho giveth goodly
words." The hind or gazelle is a simile of a warrior who is
skilful and swift in his movements (2 Sam. ii. 18 ; 1 Chron. xii.
8, cf. Ps. xviii. 33 ; Hab. iii. 19). nn?^ here is neither hunted,
nor stretched out or grown slim ; but let loose, running freely
about (Job xxxix. 5). The meaning and allusion are obscure,
since nothing further is known of the history of the tribe of
Naphtali, than that Naphtali obtained a great victory under
Sacr., to which the Targum Jonathan also adds, "for Thy redemption, 0
Jehovah, is an everlasting redemption." But whilst the Targumists and
several fathers connect the serpent in the way with Samson, by many others
the serpent in the way is supposed to be Antichrist. On this interpretation
Luther remarks : Puto Diabolum lnijus fabidse auctcrem fuisse et finxisse kanc
glossam, ut nostras corjitationes a vero et prsesentc Antichristo abducerct.
406 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
Barak in association with Zebulun over the Canaanitish king
Jabin, which the prophetess Deborah commemorated in her cele-
brated song (Judg. iv. and v.). If the first half of the verse be
understood as referring to the independent possession of a tract
of land, upon which Naphtali moved like a hind in perfect free-
dom, the interpretation of Masius (on Josh, xix.) is certainly the
correct one : " Sicut cervus emissus et liber in herbosa et fertili
terra exultim ludit. ita et in sua fertili sorte ludet et excultabit
Nephtali" But the second half of the verse can hardly refer to
" beautiful sayings and songs, in which the beauty and fertility
of their home were displayed." It is far better to keep, as Vata-
blius does, to the general thought : tribus Naphtali erit fortis-
sima, elegantissima et agillima et erit facundissima.
Vers. 22-26. Turning to Joseph, the patriarch's heart
swelled with grateful love, and in the richest words and figures
he implored the greatest abundance of blessings upon his head.
— Ver. 22. " Son of a fruit-tree is Joseph, so7i of a fruit-tree at
the well, daughters run over the wall? Joseph is compared to
the branch of a fruit-tree planted by a well (Ps. i. 3), which
sends its shoots over the wall, and by which, according to Ps.
lxxx., we are probably to understand a vine. 1? an unusual form
of the construct state for |2, and rns> equivalent to PP1B with the
old feminine termination ath, like ^npT, Ex. xv. 2. — J"ri:3 are the
twigs and branches, formed by the young fruit-tree. The sin-
gular niyy is to be regarded as distributive, describing poetically
the moving forward, i.e. the rising up of the different branches
above the wall (Ges. § 146, 4). vJ|, a poetical form, as in ver.
17. — Vers. 23, 24. " Archers provoke him, and shoot and hate
him ; but his bow abides in strength, and the arms of his hands
remain pliant, from the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, from
thence, from the Shepherd, the Stone of ZismeZ." From the simile
of the fruit-tree Jacob passed to a warlike figure, and described
the mighty and victorious unfolding of the tribe of Joseph in
conflict with all its foes, describing with prophetic intuition the
future as already come (vid. the per/, consec). The words are
not to be referred to the personal history of Joseph himself, to
persecutions received by him from his brethren, or to his suffer-
ings in Egypt; still less to any warlike deeds of his in Egypt
(Dicstel) : they merely pointed to the conflicts awaiting his de-
CHAP. XLIX. 25, 26. 407
scendants, in which they would constantly overcome all hostile
attacks. 110 : Piel, to embitter, provoke, lacessere. 121 : per/,
o from 321 to shoot. i^N2 : " in a strong, unyielding position"
(Del). TTS : to be active, flexible ; only found here, and in
2 Sam. vi. 16 of a brisk movement, skipping or jumping.
"^if : the arms, " without whose elasticity the hands could not
hold or direct the arrow." The words which follow, " from the
hands of the Mighty One of Jacob," are not to be linked to what
follows, in opposition to the Masoretic division of the verses ;
they rather form one sentence with what precedes : " pliant re-
main the arms of his hands from the hands of God," i.e. through
the hands of God supporting them. " The Mighty One of
Jacob," He who had proved Himself to be the Mighty One by
the powerful defence afforded to Jacob ; a title which is copied
from this passage in Isa. i. 24, etc. "From thence," an em-
phatic reference to Him, from whom all perfection comes —
"from the Shepherd (xlviii. 15) and Stone of Israel." God is
called " the Stone," and elsewhere " the Rock" (Deut. xxxii. 4,
18, etc.), as the immoveable foundation upon which Israel might
trust, might stand firm and impregnably secure.
Vers. 25, 26. "From the God of thy father, may He help
thee, and icith the help of the Almighty, may He bless thee, (may
there come) blessings of heaven from above, blessings of the
deep, that lieth beneath, blessings of the breast and of the womb.
The blessing of thy father surpass the blessings of my progenitors
to the border of the everlasting hills, may they come upon the
head of Joseph, and upon the crown of the illustrious among his
brethren^ From the form of a description the blessing passes
in ver. 25 into the form of a desire, in which the "from" of
the previous clause is still retained. The words " and may He
help thee," " may He bless thee," form parentheses, for " who
will help and bless thee." 0X1 is neither to be altered into
?IX\ (and from God), as JEwald suggests, in accordance with
the LXX., Sam., Syr., and Vulg., nor into fiXB as Knobel pro-
poses ; and even the supplying of JO before rix from the parallel
clause (Ges. § 154, 4) is scarcely allowable, since the repetition
of JO before another preposition cannot be supported by any
analogous case; but 1"IX may be understood here, as in chap. iv.
1, v. 24, in the sense of helpful communion : " and with," i.e.
with (in) the fellowship of, " the Almighty, may He bless thee,
408 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
let there be (or come) blessings," etc. The verb JWffl follows in
ver. 26 after the whole subject, which is formed of many par-
allel members. The blessings were to come from heaven above
and from the earth beneath. From the God of Jacob and by
the help of the Almighty should the rain and dew of heaven
(xxvii. 28), and fountains and brooks which spring from the great
deep or the abyss of the earth, pour their fertilizing waters over
.Joseph's land, " so that everything that had womb and breast
should become pregnant, bring forth, and suckle." * D^n from
rnn signifies parentes (Chald., Vulg.); and nwn signifies not de-
siderium from nix, but boundary from HKH, Num. xxxiv. 7, 8,
= iWj, 1 Sam. xxi. 14, Ezek. ix. 4, to mark or bound off, as most
of the Rabbins explain it. ?V "Oa to be strong above, i.e. to sur-
pass. The blessings which the patriarch implored for Joseph
were to surpass the blessings which his parents transmitted to
him, to the boundary of the everlasting hills, i.e. surpass them
as far as the primary mountains tower above the earth, or so
that they should reach to the summits of the primeval moun-
tains. There is no allusion to the lofty and magnificent
mountain-ranges of Ephraim, Bashan, and Gilead, which fell to
the house of Joseph, either here or in Deut. xxxiii. 15. These
blessings were to descend upon the head of Joseph, the "VH
among his brethren, i.e. " the separated one," from 1H separavit.
Joseph is so designated, both here and Deut. xxxiii. 1(5, not on
account of his virtue and the preservation of his chastity and
piety in Egypt, but propter dignitatem, qua excellit, ah omnibus
sit segregatus (Calv.), on account of the eminence to which he
attained in Egypt. For this meaning see Lam. iv. 7 ; whereas
no example can be found of the transference of the idea of
JVasir to the sphere of morality.
Ver. 27. "BENJAMIN— a wolf, which tears in pieces ; in the
morning he devours prey, and in the evening lie divides spoil."
Morning and evening together suggest the idea of incessant
and victorious capture of booty (Del.). The warlike character
which the patriarch here attributes to Benjamin, was manifested
1 " Tims is the whole composed in pictorial words. Whatever of man and
cattle can be fruitful shall multiply and have enough. Childbearing, and
the increase of cattle, and of the corn in the field, are not our affair, but
the mercy and blessing of God." — Lulhcr.
CHAP. XLIX. 29-33, L. 1-14. 409
by that tribe, not only in the war which he waged with all the
tribes on account of their wickedness in Gibeah (Judg. xx.),
but on other occasions also (Judg. v. 14), in its distinguished
archers and dingers (Judg. xx. 16 ; 1 Chron. viii. 40, xii. ;
2 Chron. xiv. 8, xvii. 17), and also in the fact that the judge
Ehud (Judg. iii. 15 sqq.), and Saul, with his heroic son Jona-
than, sprang from this tribe (1 Sam. xi. and xiii. sqq. ; 2 Sam.
i. 19 sqq.).
The concluding words in ver.^28, " All these are the tribes
of Israel, twelve" contain the thought, that in his twelve sons
Jacob blessed the future tribes. " Every one with that which was
his blessing, he blessed them" i.e. every one with his appropriate
blessing ("IK'S accus. dependent upon SQ3 which is construed with
a double accusative) ; since, as has already been observed, even
Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, though put down through tneir own
fault, received a share in the promised blessing.
Vers. 29-33. Death of Jacob. — After the blessing, Jacob
again expressed to his twelve sons his desire to be buried in the
sepulchre of his fathers (chap, xxiv.), where Isaac and Rebekah
and his own wife Leah lay by the side of Abraham and Sarah,
which Joseph had already promised on oath to perform (xlvii.
29-31). He then drew his feet into the bed to lie down, for he
had been sitting upright while blessing his sons, and yielded up
the ghost, and was gathered to his people (yid. xxv. 8). V)^)_
instead of Hb*1 indicates that the patriarch departed from this
earthly life without a struggle. His age is not given here, be-
cause that has already been done at chap, xlvii. 28.
BURIAL OF JACOB, AND DEATH OF JOSEPH — CHAP. L.
Vers. 1-14. Burial of Jacob. — Vers. 1-3. When Jacob
died, Joseph fell upon the face of his beloved father, wept over
him, and kissed him. He then gave the body to the physicians
to be embalmed, according to the usual custom in Egypt. The
physicians are called his servants, because the reference is to the
regular physicians in the service of Joseph, the eminent minister
of state ; and according to Herod. 2, 84, there were special phy-
sicians in Egypt for every description of disease, among whom
the Taricheuta, who superintended the embalming, were included,
PENT. — VOL. I. 2D
410 THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
as a special but subordinate class. The process of embalming
lasted 40 days, and the solemn mourning 70 (ver. 3). This is
in harmony with the statements of Herodotus and Diodorus
when rightly understood (see Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books
of Moses, p. 67 sqq). — Vers. 4, 5. At the end of this period of
mourning, Joseph requested " the house of Pharaoh," i.e. the
attendants upon the king, to obtain Pharaoh's permission for him
to go to Canaan and bury his father, according to his last will,
in the cave prepared by him^there. rns (ver. 5) signifies " to
dig" (used, as in 2 Chron. xvi. 14, for the preparation of a tomb),
not " to buy." In the expression v TV"]!! Jacob attributes to
himself as patriarch what had really been done by Abraham
(chap. xxiv.). Joseph required the royal permission, because he
wished to go beyond the border with his family and a large pro-
cession. But he did not apply directly to Pharaoh, because his
deep mourning (unshaven and unadorned) prevented him from
appearing in the presence of the king.
Vers. 6-9. After the king's permission had been obtained,
the corpse was carried to Canaan, attended by a large company.
With Joseph there went up " all the servants of Pharaoh, the
elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt" i.e.
the leading officers of the court and state, " and all the house of
Joseph, and his brethren, and his fathers house" i.e. all the
members of the families of Joseph, of his brethren, and of his
deceased father, " excepting only their children and flocks ; also
chariots and horsemen" as an escort for the journey through the
desert, " a very large army." The splendid retinue of Egyptian
officers may be explained, in part from the esteem in which
Joseph was held in Egypt, and in part from the fondness of the
Egyptians for such funeral processions (cf. Ilengst. pp. 70, 71). —
Vers. 10 sqq. Thus they came to Goren Atad beyond the Jor-
dan, as the procession did not take the shortest route by Gaza
through the country of the Philistines, probably because so large
a procession with a military escort was likely to meet with diffi-
culties there, but went round by the Dead Sea. There, on the
border of Canaan, a great mourning and funeral ceremony was
kept up for seven days, from which the Canaanites, who watched
it from Canaan, gave the place the name of Abel-Mizraim, i.e.
meadow (^s with ;v play upon ?3N mourning) of the Egyptians.
The situation of Goren Atad (the buck-thorn floor), or Abel-
CHAP. L. 15-21. 411
Mizraim, has not been discovered. According to ver. 11, it was
on the other side, i.e. the eastern side, of the Jordan. This is
put beyond all doubt by ver. 12, where the sons of Jacob are
said to have carried the corpse into the land of Canaan (the land
on this side) after the mourning at Goren Atad.1 — Vers. 12, 13.
There the Egyptian procession probably stopped short ; for in
ver. 12 the sons of Jacob only are mentioned as having carried
their father to Canaan according to his last request, and buried
him in the cave of Machpelah. — Ver. 14. After performing this
filial duty, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brethren and all
their attendants.
Vers. 15-21. After their father's death, Joseph's brethren
were filled with alarm, and said, " If Joseph now should punish
us and requite all the evil that we have done to him" sc. what
would become of us ! The sentence contains an aposiopesis, like
Ps. xxvii. 13 ; and ^ with the imperfect presupposes a condition,
being used " in cases which are not desired, and for the present
not real, though perhaps possible" (Ew. § 358). The brethren
therefore deputed one of their number (possibly Benjamin) to
Joseph, and instructed him to appeal to the wish expressed by
their father before his death, and to implore forgiveness : " 0
pardon the misdeed of thy brethren and their sin, that they have
done thee evil; and now grant forgiveness to the misdeed of the
servants of the God of thy father T The ground of their plea is
contained in nriyi " and now," sc. as we request it by the desire
and direction of our father, and in the epithet applied to them-
selves, " servants of the God of thy father." There is no reason
whatever for regarding the appeal to their father's wish as a
mere pretence. The fact that no reference was made by Jacob
1 Consequently the statement of Jerome in the Onom. s. v. Area Atad—
" locus trans Jordanem, in quo planxerunt quondam Jacob, tertio ab Jerico
lapide, duobus millibus ab Jordane, qui nunc vocatur Bethagla, quod inter-
pretatur locus gyri, eo quod ibi more plangentium circumierint in funere
Jacob" — is wrong. Beth Agla cannot be the same as Goren Atad, if only
because of the distances given by Jerome from Jericho and the Jordan. They
do not harmonize at all with his trans Jordanem, which is probably taken
from this passage, but point to a place on this side of the Jordan ; but still
more, because Beth Hagla was on the frontier of Benjamin towards Judah
(Josh. xv. 6, xviii. 19), and its name has been retained in the fountain and
tower of Hajla, an hour and a quarter to the S.E. of Paha (Jericho), and
three-quarters of an hour from the Jordan, by which the site of the ancient
Beth Hagla is certainly determined. (Yid. Robinson, Pal. ii. p. 268 sqq.)
412 THE FIRST LOOK OF MOSES.
in his blessing to their sin against Joseph, merely proved that
he as their father had forgiven the sin of his sons, since the
grace of God had made their misdeed the means of Israel's sal-
vation ; but it by no means proves that he could not have in-
structed his sons humbly to beg for forgiveness from Joseph,
even though Joseph had hitherto shown them only goodness and
love. How far Joseph was from thinking of ultimate retribu-
tion and revenge, is evident from the reception which he gave
to their request (ver. 17) : " Joseph wept at their address to him,"
viz. at the fact that they could impute anything so bad to him ;
and when they came themselves, and threw themselves as ser-
vants at his feet, he said to them (ver. 19), " Fear not, for am I
in the place of GodV i.e. am I in a position to interfere of my own
accord with the purposes of God, and not rather bound to sub-
mit to them myself ? " Ye had indeed evil against me in your
mind, but God had it in mind for good (to turn this evil into
good), to do (nby like nsn xlviii. 11), as is now evident (lit. as has
occurred this day, cf. Deut. ii. 30, iv. 20, etc.), to preserve alive
a great nation (cf. xlv. 7). And now fear not, I shall provide for
you and your families" Thus he quieted them by his affectionate
words.
Vers. 22—26. Death of Joseph. — Joseph lived to see the
commencement of the fulfilment of his fathers blessing. Having
reached the age of 110, he saw Ephraim's D^t? \J3 " sons of the
third link," i.e. of great-grandsons, consequently great-great-grand-
sons. ZPy?V descendants in the third generation are expressly dis-
tinguished from "children's children" or grandsons in Ex. xxxiv.
7. There is no practical difficulty in the way of this explanation,
the only one which the language will allow. As Joseph's two sons
were born before he was 37 years old (chap. xli. 50), and Ephraim
therefore was born, at the latest, in his 36th year, and possibly
in his 34th, since Joseph was married in his 31st year, he might
have had grandsons by the time he was 56 or 60 years old, and
great-grandsons when he was from 78 to 85, so that great-great-
grandsons might have been born when he was 100 or 110 years
old. To regard the " sons of the third generation" as children
in the third generation (great-grandsons of Joseph and grand-
sons of Ephraim), as many commentators do, as though the
construct *?3 stood for the absolute, is evidently opposed to the
CHAP. L. 22-26. 413
context, since it is stated immediately afterwards, that sons of
Machir, the son of Manasseh, i.e. great-grandsons, were also born
upon his knees, i.e. so that he could take them also upon his
knees and show them his paternal love. There is no reason for
thinking of adoption in connection with these words. And if
Joseph lived to see only the great-grandsons of Ephraim as well
as of Manasseh, it is difficult to imagine why the same expression
should not be applied to the grandchildren of Manasseh, as to
the descendants of Ephraim. — Ver. 24. When Joseph saw his
death approaching, he expressed to his brethren his firm belief
in the fulfilment of the divine promise (xlvi. 4, 5, cf. xv. 16, 18
sqq.), and made them take an oath, that if God should bring
them into the promised land, they would carry his bones with
them from Egypt. This last desire of his was carried out.
•When he died, they embalmed him, and laid him (D^*! from
Q^, like xxiv. 33 in the chethib) " in the coffin," i.e. the ordinary
coffin, constructed of sycamore-wood (see Hemjstenberg, pp. 71,
72), which was then deposited in a room, according to Egyptian
custom {Herod. 2, 86), and remained in Egypt for 360 years,
until they carried it away with them at the time of the exodus,
when it was eventually buried in Shechem, in the piece of land
which had been bought by Jacob there (chap, xxxiii. 19 ; Josh,
xxiv. 32).
Thus the account of the pilgrim-life of the patriarchs ter-
minates with an act of faith on the part of the dying Joseph ;
and after his death, in consequence of his instructions, the coffin
with his bones became a standing exhortation to Israel, to turn
its eyes away from Egypt to Canaan, the land promised to its
fathers, and to wait in the patience of faith for the fulfilment of
the promise.
414
THE FIRST BOOK OF MOSES.
CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE LEADING EVENTS OF THE
PATRIARCHAL HISTORY,
Arranged according to the Hebrew Text, as a continuation of the Chronological
Table at p. 122, with an additional calculation of the year before Christ.
The Events.
2«
E 1
o o
2
s§
g &
<2 4.:
Abram's entrance into Canaan, . .
1
2021
2137
Birth of Ishmael,
11
2032
2126
Institution of Circumcision, ....
24
2045
2113
Birth of Isaac,
25
2046
2112
Death of Sarah,
62
2083
2075
Marriage of Isaac,
65
2086
2072
Birth of Esau and Jacob,
85
2106
2052
Death of Abraham,
100
2121
2037
Marriage of Esau,
125
2146
2012
Death of Ishmael,
148
2169
1989
Flight of Jacob to Padan Aram, . .
162
2183
1975
Jacob's Marriage,
169
2190
1968
Birth of Joseph,
176
2197
1961
Jacob's return from Padan Aram, . .
182
2203
1955
Jacob's arrival at Shechem in Canaan,
? 187
? 2208
? 1950
Jacob's return home to Hebron, . .
192
2213
1945
Sale of Joseph,
193
2214
1944
Death of Isaac,
205
2226
1932
Promotion of Joseph in Egypt, . .
206
2227
1931
Removal of Israel to Egypt, . . .
1
215
2236
1922
Death of Jacob,
17
2:i2
2258
1905
Death of Joseph,
71
286
2307
1851
Birth of Moses,
350
565
2586
1572
Exodus of Israel from Egypt, . . .
430
645
2666
1492
The calculation of the years B.C. is based upon the fact, that
the termination of the 70 years' captivity coincided with the first
year of the sole government of Cyrus, and fell in the year 506
B.C. ; consequently the captivity commenced in the year 606 B.C.,
and, according to the chronological data of the books of Kings,
.IiKlaii was carried into captivity 406 years after the building
of Solomon's temple commenced, whilst the temple was built
480 years after the exodus from Egypt (1 Kings vi. 1).
THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
(EXODUS.)
INTRODUCTION.
CONTENTS AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE BOOK OF EXODUS.
HE second book of Moses is called niDE> n^NI in the
Hebrew Codex from the opening words ; but in the
Septuagint and Vulgate it has received the name
"jE|oSo<?, Exodus, from the first half of its contents.
It gives an account of the first stage in the fulfilment of the
promises given to the patriarchs, with reference to the growth of
the children of Israel into a numerous people, their deliverance
from Egypt, and their adoption at Sinai as the people of God.
It embraces a period of 360 years, extending from the death of
Joseph, with which the book of Genesis closes, to the building
of the tabernacle, at the commencement of the second year after
the departure from Egypt. During this period the rapid in-
crease of the children of Israel, which is described in chap, i.,
and which caused such anxiety to the new sovereigns of Egypt
who had ascended the throne after the death of Joseph, that
they adopted measures for the enslaving and suppression of the
ever increasing nation, continued without interruption. With
the exception of this fact, and the birth, preservation, and edu-
cation of Moses, who was destined by God to be the deliverer of
His people, which are circumstantially related in chap, ii., the
entire book from chap. iii. to chap. xl. is occupied with an elabo-
rate account of the events of two years, viz. the last year before
the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and the first year of
41G INTRODUCTION.
their journey. This mode of treating the long period in ques-
tion, which seems out of all proportion when judged by a merely
outward standard, may be easily explained from the nature and
design of the sacred history. The 430 years of the sojourn of
the Israelites in Egypt were the period during which the immi-
grant family was to increase and multiply, under the blessing
and protection of God, in the way of natural development ; until
it had grown into a nation, and was ripe for that covenant which
Jehovah had made with Abraham, to be completed with the
nation into which his seed had grown. During the whole of this
period the direct revelations from God to Israel were entirely
suspended ; so that, with the exception of what is related in chap,
i and ii., no event occurred of any importance to the kingdom
of God. It was not till the expiration of these 400 years, that
the execution of the divine plan of salvation commenced with the
call of Moses (chap, iii.) accompanied by the founding of the
kingdom of God in Israel. To this end Israel was liberated
from the power of Egypt, and, as a nation rescued from human
bondage, was adopted by God, the Lord of the whole earth, as
the people of His possession.
These two great facts of far-reaching consequences in the
history of the world, as well as in the history of salvation, form
the kernel and essential substance of this book, which may be
divided accordingly into two distinct parts. In the first part,
chap, i.-xv. 21, we have seven sections, describing (1) the prepa-
ration for the saving work of God, through the multiplication of
Israel into a great people and their oppression in Egypt (chap,
i.), and through the birth and preservation of their liberator
(chap, ii.) ; (2) the call and training of Moses to be the de-
liverer and leader of Israel (chap. iii. and iv.) ; (3) the mission
of Moses to Pharaoh (chap, v.-vii. 7) ; (4) the negotiations
between Moses and Pharaoh concerning the emancipation of
Israel, which were carried on both in words and deeds or mi-
raculous signs (chap. vii. 8-xi.) ; (5) the consecration of Israel
as the covenant nation through the institution of the feast of
Passover; (6) the exodus of Israel effected through the slaving
of the first-born of the Egyptians (chap, xii.— xiii. 16) ; and
(7) the passage of Israel through the Red Sea, and destruction
of Pharaoh and his host, with Israel's song of triumph at its
deliverance (xiii. 17— XV. 21). — In the second part, chap. xv.
CONTENTS AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 417
22-xI., we have also seven sections, describing the adoption
of Israel as the people of God ; viz. (1) the march of Israel
from the Red Sea to the mountain of God (chap. xv. 22-xvii.
7) ; (2) the attitude of the heathen towards Israel, as seen in
the hostility of Amalek, and the friendly visit of Jethro the
Midianite at Horeb (chap. xvii. 8-xviii.); (3) the establishment
of the covenant at Sinai through the election of Israel as the
people of Jehovah's possession, the promulgation of the funda-
mental law and of the fundamental ordinances of the Israelitish
commonwealth, and the solemn conclusion of the covenant itself
(chap, xix.-xxiv. 11) ; (4) the divine directions with regard to
the erection and arrangement of the dwelling-place of Jehovah
in Israel (chap. xxiv. 12-xxxi.); (5) the rebellion of the Israelites
and their renewed acceptance on the part of God (chap, xxxii.-
xxxiv.) ; " (6) the building of the tabernacle and preparation of
holy things for the worship of God (chap, xxxv.-xxxix.) ; and
(7) the setting up of the tabernacle and its solemn consecration
(chap. ad.).
These different sections are not marked off, it is true, like
the ten parts of Genesis, by special headings, because the account
simply follows the historical succession of the events described ;
but they may be distinguished with perfect ease, through the in-
ternal grouping and arrangement of the historical materials.
The song of Moses at the Red Sea (chap, xv. 1-21) formed most
unmistakeably the close of the first stage of the history, which
commenced with the call of Moses, and for which the way was
prepared, not only by the enslaving of Israel on the part of the
Pharaohs, in the hope of destroying its national and religious
independence, but also by the rescue and education of Moses,
and by his eventful life. And the setting up of the tabernacle
formed an equally significant close to the second stage of the
history. By this, the covenant which Jehovah had made with
the patriarch Abram (Gen. xv.) was established with the people
Israel. By the filling of the dwelling-place, which had just been
set up, with the cloud of the glory of Jehovah (Ex. xl. 34-38),
the nation of Israel was raised into a congregation of the Lord
and the establishment of the kingdom of God in Israel fully
embodied in the tabernacle, with Jehovah dwelling in the
Most Holy Place ; so that all subsequent legislation, and the
further progress of the history in the guidance of Israel from
418 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
Sinai to Canaan, only served to maintain and strengthen that
fellowship of the Lord with His people, which had already
been established by the conclusion of the covenant, and .sym-
bolically exhibited in the building of the tabernacle. By this
marked conclusion, therefore, with a fact as significant in itself
as it was important in the history of Israel, Exodus, which com-
mences with a list of the names of the children of Israel who
went down to Egypt, is rounded off into a complete and inde-
pendent book among the five books of Moses.
INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF THE ISRAELITES. THEIR
BONDAGE IN EGYPT. — CHAP. I.
The promise which God gave to Jacob on his departure
from Canaan (Gen. xlvi. 3) was perfectly fulfilled. The chil-
dren of Israel settled down in the most fruitful province of the
fertile land of Egypt, and grew there into a great nation (vers.
1—7). But the words which the Lord had spoken to Abram
(Gen. xv. 13) were also fulfilled in relation to his seed in
Egypt. The children of Israel were oppressed in a strange
land, were compelled to serve the Egyptians (vers. 8-14), and
were in great danger of being entirely crushed by them (vers.
15-22).
Vers. 1-7. To place the multiplication of the children of
Israel into a strong nation in its true light, as the commencement
of the realization of the promises of God, the number of the
souls that went down with Jacob to Egypt is repeated from
Gen. xlvi. 27 (on the number 70, in which Jacob is included,
see the notes on this passage) ; and the repetition of the names
of the twelve sons of Jacob serves to give to the history which
follows a character of completeness within itself. " With Jacob
they came, every one and his house," i.e. his sons, together with
their families, their wives, and their children. The sons are
arranged according to their mothers, as in Gen. xxxv. 23-26,
and the sons of the two maid-servants stand last. Joseph,
indeed, is not placed in the list, but brought into special pro-
minence by the words, "for Joseph was in Egypt" (ver. 5), since
CHAP. I. 8-14. 419
he did not go down to Egypt along with the house of Tacob,
and occupied an exalted position in relation to them there. —
Vers. 6 sqq. After the death of Joseph and his brethren and
the whole of the family that had first immigrated, there occurred
that miraculous increase in the number of the children of
Israel, by which the blessings of creation and promise were fully
realized. The words VIS, «fit£ {swarmed), and EH* point back
to Gen. i. 28 and viii. 17, and WW£ to Dtttf Ma in Gen. xviii. 18.
" The land was filled with them" i.e. the land of Egypt, particu-
larly Goshen, where they were settled (Gen. xlvii. 11). The extra-
ordinary fruitfulness of Egypt in both men and cattle is attested
not only by ancient writers, but by modern travellers also (vid.
Aristotelis hist, animal, vii. 4, 5 ; Columella de re rust. iii. 8 ;
Plin. hist. n. vii. 3 ; also Rosenmiiller a. und n. Morgenland i.
p. 252). This blessing of nature was heightened still further in
the case of the Israelites by the grace of the promise, so that the
increase became extraordinarily great (see the comra. on chap,
xii. 37).
Vers. 8—14. The promised blessing was manifested chiefly
in the fact, that all the measures adopted by the cunning of
Pharaoh to weaken and diminish the Israelites, instead of check-
ing, served rather to promote their continuous increase. — Ver.
8. " There arose a new king over Egypt, toho knew not Joseph?
D£l signifies he came to the throne, mp denoting his appearance
in history, as in Deut. xxxiv. 10. A " new king" (LXX. :
fiaaikevs erepos ; the other ancient versions, rex novus) is a king
who follows different principles of government from his prede-
cessors. Cf. Ct^H ^Hpt*. " new gods," in distinction from the
God that their fathers had worshipped, Judg. v. 8 ; Deut. xxxii.
17. That this king belonged to a new dynasty, as the majority
of commentators follow Josephus x in assuming, cannot be inferred
with certainty from the predicate new ; but it is very probable,
as furnishing the readiest explanation of the change in the prin-
ciples of government. The question itself, however, is of no
direct importance in relation to theology, though it has consider-
able interest in connection with Egyptological researches.2 The
1 Ant. ii. 9, 1. Tij? (iaatXitxg il; S.'h'hov o7x,ov fisruM^vdvi'x;.
2 The want of trustworthy accounts of the history of ancient Egypt and
its rulers precludes the possibility of bringing this question to a decision. It
is true that attempts have been made to mix it- up in various ways with tho
420 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
new king did not acknowledge Joseph, i.e.
relation to Egypt. JHJ fc6 signifies here, not to perceive, or ac-
knowledge, in the sense of not wanting to know anything about
him, as in 1 Sam. ii. 12, etc. In the natural course of things,
the merits of Joseph might very well have been forgotten long
before ; for the multiplication of the Israelites into a numerous
people, which had taken place in the meantime, is a sufficient
proof that a very long time had elapsed since Joseph's death.
At the same time such forgetfulness does not usually take place
all at once, unless the account handed down has been inten-
stateraents which Josephus has transmitted from Manetho with regard to the
rule of the Hyksos in Egypt (c. Ap. i. 14 and 26), and the rising up of the " new
king" has been identified sometimes with the commencement of the Hyksos
rule, and at other times with the return of the native dynasty on the expul-
sion of the Hyksos. But just as the accounts of the ancients with regard to
the Hyksos bear throughout the stamp of very distorted legends and exagger-
ations, so the attempts of modern inquirers to clear up the confusion of these
legends, and to bring out the historical truth that lies at the foundation of
them all, have led to nothing but confused and contradictory hypotheses ;
so that the greatest Egyptologists of our own days, — viz. Lepsius, Bunsen,
and Brugsch — differ throughout, and are even diametrically opposed to one
another in their views respecting the dynasties of Egypt. Not a single trace
of the Hyksos dynasty is to be found either in or upon the ancient monu-
ments. The documental proofs of the existence of a dynasty of foreign
kings, which the Vicomte de Rouge thought that he had discovered in the
Papyrus Sallier "No. 1 of the British Museum, and which Brugsch pronounced
" an Egyptian document concerning the Hyksos period," have since then
been declared untenable both by Brugsch and Lepsius, and therefore given
up again. Neither Herodotus nor Diodorus Siculus heard anything at all
about the Hyksos, though the former made very minute inquiry of the Egyp-
tian priests of Memphis and Heliopolis. And lastly, the notices of Egypt
and its kings, which we meet with in Genesis and Exodus, do not contain
the slightest intimation that there were foreign kings ruling there either in
Joseph's or Moses' days, or that the genuine Egyptian spirit which pervades
these notices was nothing more than the "outward adoption" of Egyptian
customs and modes of thought. If we add to this the unquestionably legen-
dary character of the Manetho accounts, there is always the greatest proba-
bility in the views of those inquirers who regard the two accounts given by
Manetho concerning the Hyksos as two different forms of one and the same
legend, and the historical fact upon which this legend was founded as being
the 430 years' sojourn of the Israelites, which had been thoroughly distorted
in the national interests of Egypt. — For a further expansion and defence of.
this view .see Hdvernick's Einh itung in d. A. T. i. 2, pp. 338 sqq., Ed. 2 (In-
troduction to the Pentateuch, pp. 235 sqq. English translation).
CHAP. I. 8-14. 421
tionally obscured or suppressed. If the new king, therefore, did
not know Joseph, the reason must simply have been, that he did
not trouble himself about the past, and did not want to know
anything about the measures of his predecessors and the events
of their reigns. The passage is correctly paraphrased by Jona-
than thus : non agnovit (B^n) Josephum nee ambulavit in statutis
ejus. Forgetfulness of Joseph brought the favour shown to the
Israelites by the kings of Egypt to a close. As they still con-
tinued foreigners both in religion and customs, their rapid in-
crease excited distrust in the mind of the king, and induced
him to take steps for staying their increase and reducing their
strength. The statement that "the people of the children of
Israel" (^nfe* V.3 BJ? lit. " nation, viz. the sons of Israel ;" for W
with the dist. accent is not the construct state, and ?a,m\Wi "on is
in apposition, cf. Ges. § 113) were "more and mightier" than the
Egyptians, is no doubt an exaggeration. — Ver. 10. " Let us deal
wisely with them" i.e. act craftily towards them. 0?nnn, sapien-
sem se gessit (Eccl. vii. 16), is used here of political craftiness,
or worldly wisdom combined with craft and cunning {jcaraao-
(f)to-cofAeda, LXX.), and therefore is altered into ?33nn in Ps. cv.
25 (cf. Gen. xxxvii. 18). The reason assigned by the king for the
measures he was about to propose, was the fear that in case of
war the Israelites might make common cause with his enemies, and
then remove from Egypt. It was not the conquest of his kingdom
that he was afraid of, but alliance with his enemies and emigra-
tion. n?y is used here, as in Gen. xiii. 1, etc., to denote removal
from Egypt to Canaan. He was acquainted with the home of
the Israelites therefore, and cannot have been entirely ignorant
of the circumstances of their settlement in Egypt. But he re-
garded them as his subjects, and was unwilling that they should
leave the country, and therefore was anxious to prevent the pos-
sibility of their emancipating themselves in the event of war. —
In the form HJN^n for •"U'nipri, according to the frequent inter-
change of the forms n"^ and $"b (vid. Gen. xlii. 4), Hi is trans-
ferred from the feminine plural to the singular, to distinguish
the 3d pers. fern, from the 2d pers., as in Judg. v. 26, Job xvii.
16 (vid. Ewald, § 191c, and Ges. § 47, 3, Anm. 3). Conse-
quently there is no necessity either to understand nionpp collec-
tively as signifying soldiers, or to regard U&npPI, the reading
adopted by the LXX. (crv/u,/3fj ijfuv), the Samaritan, Chaldee,
422 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
Syriac, and Vulgate, as " certainly the original," as Knohel has
done.
The first measure adopted (ver. 11) consisted in the appoint-
ment of taskmasters over the Israelites, to bend them down by
hard labour. D^DD *lfe> bailiffs over the serfs. D^BD from DO
signifies, not feudal service, but feudal labourers, serfs (see my
Commentary on 1 Kings iv. 6). H3J? to bend, to wear out any
one's strength (Ps. cii. 24). By hard feudal labour (JTO3D bur-
dens, burdensome toil) Pharaoh hoped, according to the ordinary
maxims of tyrants (Aristot. polit. 5, 9 ; Liv. hist. i. 56, 59), to
break down the physical strength of Israel and lessen its increase,
— since a population always grows more slowly under oppression
than in the midst of prosperous circumstances, — and also to crush
their spirit so as to banish the very wish for liberty. — p-l, and
so Israel built (was compelled to build) provision or magazine
cities (vid. 2 Chron. xxxii. 28, cities for the storing of the har-
vest), in which the produce of the land was housed, partly for
purposes of trade, and partly for provisioning the army in time
of war ; — not fortresses, 7r6\ei<; o^ypai, as the LXX. have ren-
dered it. Plthom was ndrovfios ; it was situated, according to
Herodotus (2, 158), upon the canal which commenced above
Bybastus and connected the Nile with the Red Sea. This city
is called Thou or Thoum in the Itiner. Anton., the Egyptian
article pi being dropped, and according to Jomard (deseript. t. 9,
p. 368) is to be sought for on the site of the modern Abassieh in
the Wady Tumilat. — Raemses (cf. Gen. xlvii. 11) was the ancient
Ileroopolis, and is not to be looked for on the site of the modern
Belbeis. In support of the latter supposition, Stickcl, who agrees
with Kurtz and Knobel, adduces chiefly the statement of the
Egyptian geographer Mahizi, that in the (Jews') book of the
law Belbeis is called the land of Goshen, in which Jacob dwelt
when he came to his son Joseph, and that the capital of the
province was el Sharkiyeh. This place is a day's journey (or
as others affirm, 14 hours) to the north-east of Cairo on the
Svri hi and Egyptian road. It served as a meeting-place in the
middle ages for the caravans from Egypt to Syria and Arabia
(Bitter, Erdkunde 14, p. 59). It is said to have been in exist-
ence before the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt. But the clue
cannot be traced any farther back; and it is too far from the
Red Sea for the Raemses of the Bible (vid. chap. xii. 37). The
CHAP. I. 8-14. 423
authority of Makrizi is quite counterbalanced by the much older
statement of the Septuagint, in which Jacob is made to meet his
son Joseph in Heroopolis; the words of Gen. xlvi. 29, "and
Joseph went up to meet Israel his father to Goshen" being-
rendered thus : eh avvavrrjcnv fIapai]\ rco irarpl avrov Ka&
'Hpcocov iroXtv. Hengstenberg is not correct in saying that the
later name Heroopolis is here substituted for the older name
Raemses ; and Gesenius, Kurtz, and Knobel are equally wrong
in affirming that tcaO' 'Hpcocov iroXtv is supplied ex ingenio suo ;
but the place of meeting, which is given indefinitely as Goshen
in the original, is here distinctly named. Now if this more pre-
cise definition is not an arbitrary conjecture of the Alexandrian
translators, but sprang out of their acquaintance with the country,
and is really correct, as Kurtz has no doubt, it follows that
Heroopolis belonged to the <yi) 'Pafiecrcrfj (Gen. xlvi. 28, LXX.),
or was situated within it. But this district formed the centre
of the Israelitish settlement in Goshen ; for according to Gen.
xlvii. 11, Joseph gave his father and brethren " a possession in
the best of the land, in the land of Raemses." Following this
passage, the LXX. have also rendered |^3 n^"isi in Gen. xlvi. 28
by eh <yr)v 'Pafiecrcrr], whereas in other places the land of Goshen
is simply called 7J7 Tecrepb (Gen. xlv. 10, xlvi. 34, xlvii. 1, etc.).
But if Heroopolis belonged to the 7J7 'Pa/Jbeaarj, or the province
of Raemses, which formed the centre of the land of Goshen that
was assigned to the Israelites, this city must have stood in the
immediate neighbourhood of Raemses, or have been identical
with t. Now, since the researches of the scientific men attached
to the great French expedition, it has been generally admitted
that Heroopolis occupied the site of the modern Abu Keisheib in
the Wady Tumilat, between Thoum = Pithom and the Birket
Temsah or Crocodile Lake ; and according to the Itiner. p. 170,
it was only 24 Roman miles to the east of Pithom, — a position
that was admirably adapted not only for a magazine, but also
for the gathering-place of Israel prior to their departure (chap,
xii. 37).
But Pharaoh's first plan did not accomplish his purpose (ver.
12). The multiplication of Israel went on just in proportion to
the amount of the oppression (|3 = "^'N? prout, ita; p3 as in Gen.
xxx. 30, xxviii. 14), so that the Egyptians were dismayed at the
Israelites (pp to feel dismay, or fear, Num. xxii. 3). In this in-
424 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
crease of their numbers, which surpassed all expectation, there
was the manifestation of a higher, supernatural, and to them
awful power. But instead of bowing before it, they still en-
deavoured to enslave Israel through hard servile labour. In
vers. 13, 14 we have not an account of any fresh oppression ;
but " the crushing by hard labour" is represented as enslaving
the Israelites and embittering their lives. 1QB hard oppression,
from the Chaldee V.Q to break or crush in pieces. " They em-
bittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks (making
clay into bricks, and working with the bricks when made), and
in all kinds of labour in the field (this was very severe in Egypt
on account of the laborious process by which the ground was
watered Deut. xi. 10), Dn^bjT73 OS! tvith regard to all their labour,
which they ivorhed {i.e. performed) through them (viz. the Israel-
ites) with severe oppression!' ']H>3 nx is also dependent upon
WW, as a second accusative (Ewald, § 277<rZ). Bricks of clay
were the building materials most commonly used in Egypt, The
ployment of foreigners in this kind of labour is to be seen
presented in a painting, discovered in the ruins of Thebes,
and oiven in the Egyptological works of Rosellini and Wilkinson,
in which workmen who are evidently not Egyptians are occupied
in making bricks, whilst two Egyptians with sticks are standing
as overlookers; — even if the labourers are not, intended for the
Israelites, as the Jewish physiognomies would lead us to sup-
pose. (For fuller details, see Hengstenberg s Egypt and the
Books of Moses, p. 80 sqq. English translation).
Vers. 15-21. As the first plan miscarried, the king proceeded
to try a second, and that a bloody act of cruel despotism. He
commanded the midwives to destroy the male children in the
birth and to leave only the girls alive. The midwives named
in ver. 15, who are not Egyptian but Hebrew women, were no
doubt the heads of the whole profession, and were expected to
communicate their instructions to their associates. "lEN5} in ver.
16 resumes the address introduced by "ift^l in ver. 15. The ex-
pression Drnxn-^, of which such various renderings have been
given, is used in Jer. xviii. 3 to denote the revolving table of a
potter, i.e. the two round discs between which a potter forms his
earthenware vessels by turning, and appears to be transferred
here to the vagina out of which the child twists itself, as it were
like the vessel about to be formed out of the potter's discs.
em
re
CHAP. I. 22. 425
Knohel has at length decided in favour of this explanation, at
which the Targumists hint with their KW©. When the mid-
wives were called in to assist at a birth, they were to look care-
fully at the vagina ; and if the child were a boy, they were to
destroy it as it came out of the womb, n^m for n^n from *n,
see Gen. iii. 22. The 1 takes kametz before the major pause,
as in Gen. xliv. 9 (cf. Ewald, § 243a).— Ver. 17. But the mid-
wives feared God (ha-Elohim, the personal, true God), and did
not execute the king's command. — Ver. 18. When questioned
upon the matter, the explanation which they gave was, that
the Hebrew women were not like the delicate women of Egypt,
but were n^n " vigorous" (had much vital energy : Ahenezra),
so that they gave birth to their children before the midwives
arrived. They succeeded in deceiving the king with this reply,
as childbirth is remarkably rapid and easy in the case of Arabian
women (see JBurckhardt, Beduinen, p. 78 ; Teschendorf, Reise
i. p. 108). — Vers. 20, 21. God rewarded them for their con-
duct, and " made them houses," i.e. gave them families and pre-
served their posterity. In this sense to " make a house" in 2
Sam. vii. 11 is interchanged with to "build a house" in ver. 27
(vid. Ruth iv. 11). DH? for \\V as in Gen. xxxi. 9, etc. Through
not carrying out the ruthless command of the king, they had
helped to build up the families of Israel, and their own families
were therefore built up by God. Thus God rewarded them,
" not, however, because they lied, but because they were merci-
ful to the people of God ; it was not their falsehood therefore
that was rewarded, but their kindness (more correctly, their fear
of God), their benignity of mind, not the wickedness of their
lying ; and for the sake of what was good, God forgave what
was evil." (Augustine, contra mendac. c. 19.)
Ver. 22. The failure of his second plan drove the king to
acts of open violence. He issued commands to all his subjects
to throw every Hebrew boy that was born into the river (i.e.
the Nile). The fact, that this command, if carried out, would
necessarily have resulted in the extermination of Israel, did not
in the least concern the tyrant ; and this cannot be adduced as
forming any objection to the historical credibility of the narra-
tive, since other cruelties of a similar kind are to be found
recorded in the history of the world. Clericus has cited the
conduct of the Spartans towards the helots. Nor can the num-
PEXT. — VOL. I. 2 E
426 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
bers of the Israelites at the time of the exodus be adduced as a
proof that uo such murderous command can ever have been
issued ; for nothing more can be inferred from this, than that
the command Avas neither fully executed nor long regarded, as
the Egyptians were not all so hostile to the Israelites as to be
very zealous in carrying it out, and the Israelites would cer-
tainly neglect no means of preventing its execution. Even
Pharaoh's obstinate refusal to let the people go, though it cer-
tainly is inconsistent with the intention to destroy them, cannot
shake the truth of the narrative, but may be accounted for on
psychological grounds, from the very nature of pride and ty-
ranny which often act in the most reckless manner without at
all regarding the consequences, or on historical grounds, from
the supposition not only that the king who refused the permis-
sion to depart was a different man from the one who issued the
murderous edicts (cf. chap. ii. 23), but that when the oppression
had continued for some time the Egyptian government generally
discovered the advantage they derived from the slave labour of
the Israelites, and hoped through a continuance of that oppres-
sion so to crush and break their spirits, as to remove all ground
for fearing either rebellion, or alliance with their foes.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF MOSES ; FLIGHT FROM EGYPT, AND
LIFE IN MIDIAN. — CHAP. II.
Vers. 1-10. Birth and education of Moses. — Whilst
Pharaoh was urging forward the extermination of the Israelites,
God was preparing their emancipation. According to the
divine purpose, the murderous edict of the king was to lead to
the training and preparation of the human deliverer of Israel.
— Vers. 1, 2. At the time when all the Hebrew boys were
ordered to be thrown into the Nile, "there went (n?n contri-
butes to the pictorial character of the account, and serves to
bring out its importance, just as in Gen. xxxv. 22, Deut. xxxi. 1)
a man of the house of Levi — according to chap. vi. 20 ami Num.
xxvi. 59, it was Amram, of the Levitical family of Kohath —
andmarri, ,1 ,i daughter (i.e. a descendant) of Levi" named Joche-
bed, who bore him a son, viz. MOSEB. From chap. vi. 20 we
learn that Moses was not the first child of this marriage, but his
chap. ii. 1-10. 427
brother Aaron ; and from ver. 7 of this chapter, it is evident
that when Moses was born, his sister Miriam was by no means a
child (Num. xxvi. 59). Both of these had been born before the
murderous edict was issued (chap. i. 22). They are not men-
tioned here, because the only question in hand was the birth and
deliverance of Moses, the future deliverer of Israel. " When
the mother saiv that the child ivas 'beautiful" (3iD as in Gen. vi.
2 ; LXX. aarelos), she began to think about his preservation.
The very beauty of the child was to her " a peculiar token of
divine approval, and a sign that God had some special design
concerning him" (Delitzsch on Heb. xi. 23). The expression
dcrreto9 ra> Qea> in Acts vii. 20 points to this. She therefore hid
the new-born child for three months, in the hope of saving him
alive. This hope, however, neither sprang from a revelation
made to her husband before the birth of her child, that he was
appointed to be the saviour of Israel, as Josephus affirms (Ant.
ii. 9, 3), either from his own imagination or according to the
belief of his age, nor from her faith in the patriarchal promises,
but primarily from the natural love of parents for their off-
spring. And if the hiding of the child is praised in Heb. xi. 23
as an act of faith, that faith was manifested in their not obey-
ing the king's commandment, but fulfilling without fear of man
all that was required by that parental love, which God approved,
and which was rendered all the stronger by the beauty of the
child, and in their confident assurance, in spite of all apparent
impossibility, that their effort would be successful (via1. Delitzsch
ut supra). This confidence was shown in the means adopted by
the mother to save the child, when she could hide it no longer.
— Ver. 3. She placed the infant in an ark of bulrushes by the
bank of the Nile, hoping that possibly it might be found by
some compassionate hand, and still be delivered. The dagesh
dirim. in i^DiTi serves to separate the consonant in which it
stands from the syllable which follows (vid. Ewald, § 92c ; Ges.
§ 20, 2b). N»l ran a little chest of rushes. The use of the
word ran (ark) is probably intended to call to mind the ark in
which Noah was saved (vid. Gen. vi. 14). KDJ, papyrus, the
paper reed : a kind of rush which was very common in ancient
Egypt, but has almost entirely disappeared, or, as Pruner affirms
(dgypt. Naturgesch. p. 55), is nowhere to be found. It had a
triangular stalk about the thickness of a finger, which grew to
428 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
the height of ten feet; and from this the lighter Nile boats were
made, whilst the peeling of the plant was used for sails, mat-
tresses, mats, sandals, and other articles, but chiefly for the
preparation of paper (yid. Celsii Hierobot. ii. pp. 137 sqq. ; Heng-
sfenberg, Egypt and the Books of Moses, pp. 85, 86, transl.).
rvionrrt, for ^"jpnri with mappik omitted : and cemented (pitched)
it with *110n bitumen, the asphalt of the Dead Sea, to fasten the
papyrus stalks, and with pitch, to make it water-tight, and jmt it
in the reeds by the bank of the Nile, at a spot, as the sequel
shows, where she knew that the king's daughter was accustomed
to bathe. For " the sagacity of the mother led her, no doubt,
so to arrange the whole, that the issue might be just what is re-
lated in vers. 5-9" (Baumgarterx). The daughter stationed
herself a little distance off, to see what happened to the child
(ver. 4). This sister of Moses was most probably the Miriam
who is frequently mentioned afterwards (Num. xxvi. 59). SiTiri
for 3^H)i. The infinitive form njn as in Gen. xlvi. 3. — Ver. 5.
Pharaoh's daughter is called Thermouthis or Merris in Jewish
tradition, and by the Rabbins iWO. "liorrpy is to be connected
with TWj and the construction with ?V to be explained as referring
to the descent into (upon) the river from the rising bank. The
fact that a king's daughter should bathe in the open river is cer-
tainly opposed to the customs of the modern, Mohammedan East,
where this is only done by women of the lower orders, and that
in remote places (Lane, Manners and Customs); but it is in har-
mony with the customs of ancient Egj^pt,1 and in perfect agree-
ment with the notions of the early Egyptians respecting the
sanctity of the Nile, to which divine honours even were paid
(yid. Hengstenberg's Egypt, etc. pp. 109, 110), and with the be-
lief, which was common to both ancient and modern Egyptians,
in the power of its waters to impart fruitfulness and prolong
life (vid. Strabo, xv. p. 695, etc., and Scetzen, Travels iii. p. 204).
Vers. 6 sqq. The exposure of the child at once led the king's
daughter to conclude that it was one of the Jlebreics' children.
The fact that she took compassion on the weeping child, and
notwithstanding the king's command (i. 22) took it up and had
it brought up (of course, without the knowledge of the king),
may be accounted for from the love to children which is innate
1 Wilkinson gives a picture of a bathing scene, in which an Egyptian
woman of rank is introduced, attended by four female servants.
chap. ii. 1-10. 429
in the female sex, and the superior adroitness of a mother's heart,
which co-operated in this case, though without knowing or in-
tending it, in the realization of the divine plan of salvation.
Competens fuit diviua vindicta, ut snis affectibus puniatur parri-
cida et Jilice provisioue pereat qui genitrices interdixerat parturire
(August. Sermo 89 de temp.). — Ver. 9. With the directions,
" Take this child away (^-Jy1?} for "Owl used here in the sense of
leading, bringing, carrying away, as in Zech. v. 10, Eccl. x.
20) Mid suckle it for me," the king's daughter gave the child to
its mother, who was unknown to her, and had been fetched as a
nurse. — Ver. 10. When the child had grown large, i.e. had
been weaned (7W as in Gen. xxi. 8), the mother, who acted as
nurse, brought it back to the queen's daughter, who then adopted
it as her own son, and called it Moses (n^'°) : " for" she said,
" out of the water have I drawn him" (innate). As Pharaoh's
daughter gave this name to the child as her adopted son, it
must be an Egyptian name. The Greek form of the name,
Mwvgtjs (LXX.), also points to this, as Josephus affirms. " Ther-
muthis," he says, " imposed this name upon him, from what had
happened when he was put into the river ; for the Egyptians
call water MO, and those who are rescued from the water uses "
(Ant. ii. 9, 6, Winston's translation). The correctness of this
statement is confirmed by the Coptic, which is derived from the
old Egyptian.1 Now, though we find the name explained in the
text from the Hebrew n^D, this is not to be regarded as a philo-
logical or etymological explanation, but as a theological inter-
pretation, referring to the importance of the person rescued from
the water to the Israelitish nation. In the lips of an Israelite,
the name Mouje, which was so little suited to the Hebrew organs
of speech, might be involuntarily altered into Moshe ; " and this
transformation became an unintentional prophecy, for the person
drawn out did become, in fact, the drawer out" (Kurtz). Conse-
quently KnobeVs supposition, that the writer regarded HE'S as a
participle Poal with the » dropped, is to be rejected as inad-
missible.— There can be no doubt that, as the adopted son of
1 Josephus gives a somewhat different explanation in his book against
Apion (i. 31), when he says, " His true name was Mouses, and signifies a
person who is rescued from the water, for the Egyptians call water Moii."
Other explanations, though less probable ones, are attempted by Gesenius
in his Thes. p. 824, and Knobel in he.
430 TriE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
Pharaoh's daughter, Moses received a thoroughly Egyptian
training, and was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,
as Stephen states in Acts vii. 22 in accordance with Jewish tra-
dition.1 Through such an education as this, he received just the
training required for the performance of the work to which
God had called him. Thus the wisdom of Egypt was employed
by the wisdom of God for the establishment of the kingdom of
God.
Vers. 11-20. Flight of Moses from Egypt to Midian.
— The education of Moses at the Egyptian court could not ex-
tinguish the feeling that he belonged to the people of Israel.
Our history does not inform us how this feeling, which was in-
herited from his parents and nourished in him when an infant
by his mother's milk, was fostered still further after he had been
handed over to Pharaoh's daughter, and grew into a firm, de-
cided consciousness of will. All that is related is, how this con-
sciousness broke forth at lenoth in the full-grown man, in the
slaying of the Egyptian who had injured a Hebrew (vers. 11,
12), and in the attempt to reconcile two Hebrew men who were
quarrelling (vers. 13, 14). Both of these occurred " in those
days," i.e. in the time of the Egyptian oppression, when Moses
had become great (t^I as in Gen. xxi. 20), i.e. had grown to be
a man. According to tradition he was then forty years old
(Acts vii. 23). What impelled him to this was not " a carnal
ambition and longing for action," or a desire to attract the atten-
tion of his brethren, but fiery love to his brethren or fellow-
countrymen, as is shown in the expression, " one of his brethren "
(ver. 11), and deep sympathy with them in their oppression and
sufferings ; whilst, at the same time, they undoubtedly displayed
the fire of his impetuous nature, and the ground-work for his
future calling. It was from this point of view that Stephen
cited these facts (Acts vii. 25, 26), for the purpose of proving to
the Jews of his own age, that they had been from time imme-
morial " stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears" (ver.
51). And this view is the correct one. Not only did Moses
1 The tradition, on the other hand, that Moses was a priest of Heliopolis,
named Oaarsiph (Jos. c. A p. i. 26, 28), is just as unhistorical as the legend
of his expedition against the Ethiopians (Jos. Ant. ii. 10), and many others
with which the later, glorifying Saga embellished his life iii Egypt.
CHAP. II. 11-20. 431
intend to help his brethren when he thus appeared among them,
but this forcible interference on behalf of his brethren could and
should have aroused the thought in their minds, that God would
send them salvation through him. " But they understood not "
(Acts vii. 25). At the same time Moses thereby declared that
he would no longer " be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ;
and chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than
to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ; esteeming the re-
proach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt"
(Heb. xi. 24-26 ; see Delitzsch in loc). And this had its roots
in faith (7rlo-T€i). But his conduct presents another aspect also,
which equally demands consideration. His zeal for the welfare
of his brethren urged him forward to present himself as the
umpire and judge of his brethren before God had called him to
this, and drove him to the crime of murder, which cannot be
excused as resulting from a sudden ebullition of wrath.1 For
he acted with evident deliberation. " He looked this way and that
way ; and when he saw no one, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him
in the sand" (ver. 12). Through his life at the Egyptian court
his own natural inclinations had been formed to rule, and they
manifested themselves on this occasion in an ungodly way. This
was thrown in his teeth by the man " in the wrong" (J^")?,
ver. 13), who was striving with his brother and doing him an
1 The judgment of Augustine is really the true one. Thus, in his
c. Faustum Manich. 1. 22, c. 70, he says, " I affirm, that the man, though
criminal and really the offender, ought not to have been put to death by
one who had no legal authority to do so. But minds that are capable of
virtues often produce vices also, and show thereby for what virtue they
would have been best adapted, if they had but been properly trained. For
just as farmers, when they see large herbs, however useless, at once conclude
that the land is good for growing corn, so that very impulse of the mind
which led Moses to avenge his brother when suffering wrong from a native,
without regard to legal forms, was not unfitted to produce the fruits of
virtue, but, though hitherto uncultivated, was at least a sign of great fer-
tility." Augustine then compares this deed to that of Peter, when attempt-
ing to defend his Lord with a sword (Matt. xxvi. 51), and adds, " Both of
them broke through the rules of justice, not through any base inhumanity,
but through animosity that needed correction : both sinned through their
hatred of another's wickedness, and their love, though carnal, in the one case
towards a brother, in the other to the Lord. This fault needed pruning or
rooting up ; but yet so great a heart could be as readily cultivated for bear-
ing virtues, as land for bearing fruit."
432 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
injury : i: Who made thee a ruler and judge over us" (ver. 14) ?
and so far he was right. The murder of the Egyptian had also
become known ; and as soon as Pharaoh heard of it, he sought
to kill Moses, who fled into the land of Midian in fear for his
life (ver. 15). Thus dread of Pharaoh's wrath drove Moses from
Egypt into the desert. For all that, it is stated in Heb. xi. 27,
that " by faith (irla-ret) Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the
wrath of the king." This faith, however, he manifested not by
fleeing — his flight was rather a sign of timidity — but by leaving
Egypt ; in other words, by renouncing his position in Egypt,
where he might possibly have softened down the king's wrath,
and perhaps even have brought help and deliverance to his
brethren the Hebrews. By the fact that he did not allow such
human hopes to lead him to remain in Egypt, and was not
afraid to increase the king's anger by his flight, he manifested
faith in the invisible One as though he saw Him, commending
not only himself, but his oppressed nation, to the care and pro-
tection of God (vid. Delitzsch on Pleb. xi. 27).
The situation of the land of Midian, to which Moses fled,
cannot be determined with certainty. The Midianites, who were
descended from Abraham through Keturah (Gen. xxv. 2, 4),
had their principal settlements on the eastern side of the Elanitic
Gulf, from which they spread northwards into the fields of
Moab (Gen. xxxvi. 35 ; Num. xxii. 4, 7, xxv. 6, 17, xxxi. 1 sqq. ;
Judg. vi. 1 sqq.), and carried on a caravan trade through Canaan
to Egypt (Gen. xxxvii. 28, 36 ; Isa. lx. 6). On the eastern side
of the Elanitic Gulf, and five days' journey from Aela, there
stood the town of Madian, the ruins of which are mentioned
by Edrisi and Abulfeda, who also speak of a well there, from
which Moses watered the flocks of his father-in-law Skoeib (i.e.
Jethro). But we are precluded from fixing upon this as the
home of Jethro by Ex. iii. 1, where Moses is said to have come
to Horeb, when he drove Jethro's sheep behind the desert. The
Midianites on the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf could not
possibly have led their flocks as far as Horeb for pa>turage. We
must assume, therefore, that one branch of the Midianites, to
whom Jethro was priest, had crossed the Elanitic Gulf, and
settled in the southern half of the peninsula of Sinai (ef. chap,
iii. 1). There is nothing improbable in such a supposition.
There are several branches of the Towara Arabs occupying the
CHAP. II. 11-20. 433
southern portion of Arabia, that have sprung from Hedjas in
this way; and even in the most modern times considerable
intercourse was carried on between the eastern side of the gulf
and the peninsula, whilst there was formerly a ferry between
Szytta, Madian, and Nekba. — The words " and he sat down (3E?5,
i.e. settled) in the land of Midian, and sat down by the well" are
hardly to be understood as simply meaning that "when he was
dwelling in Midian, he sat down one day by a well " (Baumg.),
but that immediately upon his arrival in Midian, where he in-
tended to dwell or stay, he sat down by the well. The definite
article before 1N3 points to the well as the only one, or the
principal well in that district. Knobel refers to " the well at
Sherm ; " but at Sherm el Moye {i.e. water-bay) or Sherm el Bir
(well-bay) there are " several deep wells finished off with stones,"
which are " evidently the work of an early age, and have cost
great labour " (Burckhardt, Syr. p. 854) ; so that the expression
" the well " would be quite unsuitable. Moreover there is but a
very weak support for Knobel 's attempt to determine the site of
Midian, in the identification of the Mapavlrat or Mapavels (of
Strabo and Artemidorus) with Madyan.
Vers. 16. sqq. Here Moses secured for himself a hospitable
reception from a priest of Midian, and a home at his house, by
doing as Jacob had formerly done (Gen. xxix. 10), viz. helping
his daughters to water their father's sheep, and protecting them
against the other shepherds. — On the form \VVV for }VVV vid.
Gen. xix. 19 ; and for the masculine suffixes to D'lBh^ allc^ D?^'>
Gen. xxxi. 9. ru^fi for w£w, as in Job v. 12, cf. Ewald, § 198a.
— The flock of this priest consisted of nothing but js% i.e. sheep
and goats (vid. chap. iii. 1). Even now there are no oxen reared
upon the peninsula of Sinai, as there is not sufficient pasturage
or water to be found. For the same reason there are no horses
kept there, but only camels and asses (cf. Seetzen, B,. iii. 100 ;
Wellsted, R. in Arab. ii. p. 66). In ver. 18 the priest is called
Begnel, in chap. iii. 1 Jethro. This title, "the priest of Midian,"
shows that he was the spiritual head of the branch of the
Midianites located there, but hardly that he was the prince or
temporal head as well, like Melchizedek, as the Targumists have
indicated by am, and as Artapanits and the poet Ezekiel dis-
tinctly affirm. The other shepherds would hardly have treated
the daughters of the Emir in the manner described in ver. 17.
434 THE SKCOND BOOK OF MOSES.
The name /Kljn (Reguel, friend of God) indicates that this priest
served the old Semitic God El fa). This Reguel, who gave his
daughter Zipporah to Moses, was unquestionably the same person
as Jethro (i"W) the jnh of Moses and priest of Midian (chap. iii.
1). Now, as RegueTs son Chobab is called Moses' jnh in Num.
x. 29 (cf. Judg. iv. 11), the Targumists and others supposed
Reguel to be the grandfather of Zipporah, in which case 3N
would mean the grandfather in ver. 18, and nn the granddaugh-
ter in ver. 21. This hypothesis would undoubtedly be admis-
sible, if it were probable on other grounds. But as a comparison
of Num. x. 29 with Ex. xviii. does not necessarily prove that
Chobab and Jethro were the same persons, whilst Ex. xviii. 27
seems to lead to the very opposite conclusion, and Jflh, like the
Greek jafx,/3p6<;, may be used for both father-in-law and brother-
in-law, it would probably be more correct to regard Chobab as
Moses' brother-in-law, Reguel as the proper name of his father-
in-law, and Jethro, for which Jether (pra>stantia) is substituted
in chap. iv. 18, as either a title, or the surname which showed
the rank of Reguel in his tribe, like the Arabic Imam, i.e. prce-
positus, spec, sacrorum antistes. Ranlces opinion, that Jethro
and Chobab were both of them sons of Reguel and brothers-in-
law of Moses, is obviously untenable, if only on the ground that
according to the analogy of Num. x. 29 the epithet " son of
Reguel " would not be omitted in chap. iii. 1.
Vers. 21-25. Moses' life m Midtan. — As Reguel gave a
hospitable welcome to Moses, in consequence of his daughters'
report of the assistance that he had given them in watering
their sheep ; it pleased Moses (?$*!) to dwell with him. The
primary meaning of T^in is voluit (yid. Ges. ikes.). JtHi? for
rufcop: like |JH3B> in Gen. iv. 23. — Although Moses received
Reguel's daughter Zipporah as his wife, probably after a
lengthened stay, his life in Midian was still a banishment and
a school of bitter humiliation. He gave expression to this feel-
ing at the birth of his first son in the name which he gave it,
viz. Gershom (Dfeha, i.e. banishment, from ttna to drive or thrust
away) ; "for" he said, interpreting the name according to the
sound, " / have been a stranger (TJ) in a strange la?id." In a
strange land he was obliged to live, far away from his brethren
in Egypt, and far from his fathers' land of promise ; and in this
CHAP. II. 23-25. 435
strange land the longing for home seems to have been still
further increased by his wife Zipporah, who, to judge from chap,
iv. 24 sqq., neither understood nor cared for the feelings of his
heart. By this he was urged on to perfect and unconditional
submission to the will of his God. To this feeling of submission
and confidence he gave expression at the birth of his second son,
by calling him Eliezer ("W^N God is help) ; for he said, " The
God of my father (Abraham or the three patriarchs, cf. iii. 6) is
my help, and has delivered me from the sivord of Pharaoh " (xviii.
4). The birth of this son is not mentioned in the Hebrew text,
but his name is given in chap, xviii. 4, with this explanation.1
In the names of his two sons, Moses expressed all that had
affected his mind in the land of Midian. The pride and self-
will with which he had offered himself in Egypt as the deliverer
and judge of his oppressed brethren, had been broken down by
the feeling of exile. This feeling, however, had not passed into
despair, but had been purified and raised into firm confidence in
the God of his fathers, who had shown himself as his helper by
delivering him from the sword of Pharaoh. In this state of
mind, not only did "his attachment to his people, and his longing
to rejoin them, instead of cooling, grow stronger and stronger "
(Kurtz), but the hope of the fulfilment of the promise given to
the fathers was revived within him, and ripened into the firm
confidence of faith.
Vers. 23-25 form the introduction to the next chapter. The
cruel oppression of the Israelites in Egypt continued without in-
termission or amelioration. "In those many days the king of
Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the ser-
vice" (i.e. their hard slave labour). The "many days" are the
years of oppression, or the time between the birth of Moses and
the birth of his children in Midian. The king of Egypt who
died, was in any case the king mentioned in ver. 15 ; but whether
he was one and the same with the "new king" (i. 8), or a suc-
cessor of his, cannot be decided. If the former were the case,
we should have to assume, with Baumgarten, that the death of
the king took place not very long after Moses' flight, seeing that
1 In the Vulgate the account of his birth and name is interpolated here,
and so also in some of the later codices of the LXX. But in the oldest and
best of the Greek codices it is wanting here, so that there is no ground for
the supposition that it has fallen out of the Hebrew text.
436 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
he was an old man at the time of Moses' birth, and had a grown-
up daughter. But the greater part of the " many days" would
then fall in his successor's reign, which is obviously opposed to
the meaning of the words, "It came to pass in those many days,
that the king of Egypt died." For this reason the other sup-
position, that the king mentioned here is a successor of the one
mentioned in chap. i. 8, has far greater probability. At the
same time, all that can be determined from a comparison of
chap. vii. 7 is, that the Egyptian oppression lasted more than
80 years. This allusion to the complaints of the Israelites, in
connection with the notice of the king's death, seems to imply
that they hoped for some amelioration of their lot from the
change of government ; and that when they were disappointed,
and groaned the more bitterly in consequence, they cried' to
God for help and deliverance. This is evident from the remark,
" Their cry came up unto God," and is stated distinctly in Deut.
xxvi. 7. — Vers. 24, 25. God heard their crying, and remembered
His covenant with the fathers : " and God saiv the children of
Israel, and God noticed (them)." " This seeing and noticing
had regard to the innermost nature of Israel, namely, as the
chosen seed of Abraham" (Baumgarten). God's notice has all
the energy of love and pity. Lyra has aptly explained JTPI thus :
" ad modicm cognoscentis se habuit, ostendendo dilectionem circa
eos ;" and Luther has paraphrased it correctly: "He accepted
them."
CALL OF MOSES, AND HIS RETURN TO EGYPT. —
CHAP. III. AND IV.
Chap. iii. 1-iv. 18. Call of Moses. — Whilst the children
of Israel were groaning under the oppression of Egypt, God
had already prepared the way for their deliverance, and had not
only chosen Moses to be the saviour of His people, but had
trained him for the execution of His designs. — Ver. 1. When
Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, he
drove them on one occasion behind the desert, and came to the
mountains of Horeb. njn n\n? lit. " he was feeding ;" the par-
ticiple expresses the continuance of the occupation, "ifron ins
does not mean ad interiora deserti {Jerome) ; but Moses drove
the sheep from Jethro's home as far as Iloreb, so that he passed
CHAP. III. 2-5. 437
through a desert with the flock before he reached the pasture
land of Horeb. For " in this, the most elevated ground of the
peninsula, you find the most fertile valleys, in which even fruit-
trees grow. Water abounds in this district ; consequently it is
the resort of all the Bedouins when the lower countries are dried
up" (Rosenmvller). Jethro's home was separated from Horeb,
therefore, by a desert, and is to be sought to the south-east, and
not to the north-east. For it is only a south-easterly situation
that will explain these two facts : First, that when Moses re-
turned from Midian to Egypt, he touched again at Horeb, where
Aaron, who had come from Egypt, met him (iv. 27) ; and,
secondly, that the Israelites never came upon any Midianites on
their journey through the desert, whilst the road of Hobab the
Midianite separated from theirs as soon as they dejmrted from
Sinai (Num. x. 30).1 Horeb is called the Mount of God by
anticipation, with reference to the consecration which it subse-
quently received through the revelation of God upon its summit.
The supposition that it had been a holy locality even before the
calling of Moses, cannot be sustained. Moreover, the name is
not restricted to one single mountain, but applies to the central
group of mountains in the southern part of the peninsula (vid.
chap. xix. 1). Hence the spot where God appeared to Moses
cannot be precisely determined, although tradition has very suit-
ably given the name Wady Shoeib, i.e. Jethro's Valley, to the
valley which bounds the Jebel Musa towards the east, and sepa-.
rates it from the Jebel ed Deir, because it is there that Moses is
supposed to have fed the flock of Jethro. The monastery of
Sinai, which is in this valley, is said to have been built upon the
spot where the thorn-bush stood, according to the tradition in
Antonini Placent. Itinerar. c. 37, and the annals of Eutychius
(vid. Robinson, Palestine).
Vers. 2-5. Here, at Horeb, God appeared to Moses as the
Angel of the Lord (vid. p. 185) " in aflame of fire out of the midst
of the thorn-bush^ (rUD, fidros, rubus), which burned in the fire
and was not consumed. ?3N, in combination with ^N, must be
a participle for ?3^P. When Moses turned aside from the road
1 The hypothesis, that, after the calling of Moses, this branch of the
Midianites left the district they had hitherto occupied, and sought out fresh
pasture ground, probably on the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf, is as need-
less as it is without support.
438 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
or spot where ho was standing, " to look at this great sight* '(J1K"}D),
i.e. the miraculous vision of the bush that was burning and yet not
burned up, Jehovah called to him out of the midst of the thorn-
bush, " Moses, Moses (the reduplication as in Gen. xxii. 11),
draw not nigh hither : 'put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the
place whereon thou standest is holy gi'ound" ("TOIS). The sym-
bolical meaning of this miraculous vision, — that is to say, the
fact that it was a figurative representation of the nature and
contents of the ensuing message from God, — has long been ad-
mitted. The thorn-bush in contrast with the more noble and
lofty trees (Judg. ix. 15) represented the people of Israel in their
humiliation, as a people despised by the world. Fire and the
flame of fire were not " symbols of the holiness of God ;" for,
as the Holy One, " God is light, and in Him is no darkness at
all " (1 John i. 5), He " dwells in the light which no man can
approach unto" (1 Tim. vi. 1G) ; and that not merely according
to the New Testament, but according to the Old Testament view
as well, as is evident from Isa. x. 17, where "the Light of Israel''
and "the Holy One of Israel" are synonymous. But " the Light
of Israel became fire, and the Holy One a flame, and burned
and consumed its thorns and thistles." Nor is " fire, from its
very nature, the source of light," according to the scriptural
view. On the contrary, light, the condition of all life, is also
the source of fire. The sun enlightens, warms, and burns (Job
xxx. 28 ; Sol. Song i. 6) ; the rays of the sun produce warmth,
heat, and fire; and light was created before the sun. Fire,
therefore, regarded as burning and consuming, is a figurative
representation of refining affliction and destroying punishment
(1 Cor. iii. 11 sqq.), or a symbol of the chastening and punitive
justice of the indignation and wrath of God. It is in lire that
the Lord comes to judgment (Dan. vii. 9, 10 ; Ezek. i. 13, 14,
27, 28; Rev. i. 14, 15). Fire sets forth the fiery indignation
which devours the adversaries (ITeb. x. 27). He who "judges
and makes war in righteousness" has eyes as a flame of fire
( Rev. xix. 11, 12). Accordingly, the burning thorn-bush repre-
sented the people of Israel as they were burning in the fire of
affliction, the iron furnace of Egypt (Deut. iv. 20). Yet, though
the thorn-bush was burning in the fire, it was not consumed : foi
in the flame was Jehovah, who chastens His people, but does
not give them over unto death (Ps. exviii. IS). The God of
CHAP. III. 2-5. 439
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had come down to deliver His people
out of the hand of the Egyptians (ver. 8). Although the afflic-
tion of Israel in Egypt proceeded from Pharaoh, yet was it also
a fire which the Lord had kindled to purify His people and pre-
pare it for its calling. In the flame of the burning bush the
Lord manifested Himself as the " jealous God, who visits the
sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generations of them that hate Him, and showeth mercy unto
thousands of them that love Him and keep His commandments'
(chap. xx. 5 ; Deut. v. 9, 10), who cannot tolerate the worship of
another god (xxxiv. 14), and whose anger burns against idolaters,
to destroy them (Deut. vi. 15). The "jealous God" was a
" consuming fire" in the midst of Israel (Deut. iv. 24). These
passages, show that the great sight which Moses saw not only
had reference to the circumstances of Israel in Egypt, but was
a prelude to the manifestation of God on Sinai for the establish-
ment of the covenant (chap. xix. and xx.), and also a representa-
tion of the relation in which Jehovah would stand to Israel
through the establishment of the covenant made with the fathers.
For this reason it occurred upon the spot where Jehovah intended
to set up His covenant with Israel. But, as a jealous God, He
also "takes vengeance upon His adversaries" (Nahum i. 2 sqq.).
Pharaoh, who would not let Israel go, He was about to smite
with all His wonders (hi. 20), whilst He redeemed Israel with
outstretched arm and great judgments (vi. 6). — The transition
from the Angel of Jehovah (ver. 2) to Jehovah (ver. 4) proves the
identity of the two ; and the interchange of Jehovah and Elohim,
in ver. 4, precludes the idea of Jehovah being merely a national
God. The command of God to Moses to put off his shoes, may
be accounted for from the custom in the East of wearing shoes
or sandals merely as a protection from dirt. No Brahmin enters
a pagoda, no Moslem a mosque, without first taking off at least
his overshoes (Rosenm. Morgenl. i. 261 ; Robinson, Pal. ii. p.
373) ; and even in the Grecian temples the priests and priestesses
performed the service barefooted (Justin, Apol. i. c. 62 ; Bcihr,
Symbol, ii. 96). When entering other holy places also, the
Arabs and Samaritans, and even the Yezidis of Mesopotamia,
take off their shoes, that the places may not be defiled by the
dirt or dust upon them (yid. Robinson, Pal. iii. "100, and Layard 's
Nineveh and its Remains). The place of the burning bush was
440 THE SECOND BOOK. OF MOSES.
holy because of the presence of the holy God, and putting off
the shoes was intended to express not merely respect for the
place itself, but that reverence which the inward man (Eph. iii.
16) owes to the holy God.
Ver. 6. Jehovah then made Himself known to Moses as the
God of his fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, reminding him
through that name of the promises made to the patriarchs, which
He was about to fulfil to their seed, the children of Israel. In
the expression, " thy father,"' the three patriarchs .arc classed
together as one, fast as in chap, xviii. 4 (" my father "\ "he-
cause each of them stood out singly in distinction from the
nation, as having received the promise of seed directly irom
God" (Baumgarten). " And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid
to hole upon God" The sight of the holy God no sinful man
can bear (cf. 1 Kings xix. 12). — Vers. 7-10. Jehovah had seen
the affliction of His people, had heard their cry under their task-
masters, and had come down (TV, vid. Gen. xi. 5) to deliver them
out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up to ay
good and broad land, to the place of the Canaanites ; and He
was about to send Moses to Pharaoh to bring them forth. The
land to which the Israelites were to be taken up is called a "good"
land, on account of its great fertility (Deut. viii. 7 sqq.), and a
" broad" land, in contrast with the confinement and oppression
of the Israelites in Egypt. The epithet " good" is then explained
by the expression, " a land flowing with milk and honey " (rot,
a participle of 21T in the construct state ; vid. Ges. § 135) ; a pro-
verbial description of the extraordinary fertility and loveliness
of the land of Canaan (cf. ver. 17, chap. xiii. 5, xvi. 14, etc.).
Milk and honey are the simplest and choicest productions of a
land abounding in grass and flowers, and were found in Pale-
stine in great abundance even when it was in a desolate condi-
tion (Isa. vii. 15, 22 ; see my Comm. on Josh. v. G). The
epithet broad is explained by an enumeration of the six tribes
inhabiting the country at that time (cf. Gen. x. 15 sqq. and xv.
20, 21). — Vers. 11, 12. To the divine commission Moses made
this reply: " Who am. T, that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring
forth the children of Israel out of Egypt f* Some time before
he had offered himself of his own accord as a deliverer and
judge; but now he had learned'humilitv in the school of Midian,
and was filled in consequence with distrust of his own power and
CHAP. III. 6-12. 441
fitness. The son of Pharaoh's daughter had become a shepherd,
and felt himself too weak to go to Pharaoh. But God met this
distrust by the promise, " / will be with thee" which He con-
firmed by a sign, namely, that when Israel was brought out of
Egypt, they should serve ("^y, i.e. worship) God upon that
mountain. This sign, which was to be a pledge to Moses of the
success of his mission, was one indeed that required faith itself ;
but, at the same time, it was a sign adapted to inspire both
courage and confidence. God pointed out to him the success of
his mission, the certain result of his leading the people out :
Israel should serve Him upon the very same mountain in which
He had appeared to Moses. As surely as Jehovah had appeared
to Moses as the God of his fathers, so surely should Israel serve
Him there. The reality of the appearance of God formed the
pledge of His announcement, that Israel would there serve its
God ; and this truth was to fill Moses with confidence in the
execution of the divine command. The expression "serve God"
(Xarpeveiv tm ©ea>, LXX.) means something more than the
immolare of the Vulgate, or the "sacrifice" of Luther; for even
though sacrifice formed a leading element, or the most important
part of the worship of the Israelites, the patriarchs before this
had served Jehovah by calling upon His name as well as offering-
sacrifice. And the service of Israel at Mount Horeb consisted
in their entering into covenant with Jehovah (chap, xxiv.) ; not
only in their receiving the law as the covenant nation, but their
manifesting obedience by presenting free-will offerings for the
building of the tabernacle (chap, xxxvi. 1-7 ; Num. vii.).1
1 Kurtz follows the Lutheran rendering "sacrifice" and understands by
it the first national sacrifice ; and then, from the significance of the first,
which included potentially all the rest, supposes the covenant sacrifice to be
intended. But not only is the original text disregarded here, the fact is also
overlooked, that Luther himself has translated *ny correctly, to " serve," in
every other place. And it is not sufficient to say, that by the direction of
God (iii. 18) Moses first of all asked Pharaoh for permission merely to go a
three days' journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to their God (v. 1—3), in
consequence of which Pharaoh afterwards offered to allow them to sacrifice
(viii. 3) within the land, and at a still later period outside (viii. 21 sqq.).
For the fact that Pharaoh merely spoke of sacrificing may be explained on
the ground that at first nothing more was asked. But this first demand
arose from the desire on the part of God to make known His purposes con-
cerning Israel only step by step, that it might be all the easier for the hard
heart of the king to grant what was required. But even if Pharaoh under-
PENT. — VOL. I. 2 F
I
442 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
Vers. 13-15. When Moses had been thus emboldened by the
assurance of divine assistance to undertake the mission, he in-
quired what he was to say, in case the people asked him for the
name of the God of their fathers. The supposition that the
people might ask the name of their fathers' God is not to be
attributed to the fact, that as the Egyptians had separate names
for their numerous deities, the Israelites also would want to know
the name of their own God. For, apart from the circumstance
that the name by which God had revealed Himself to the fathers
cannot have vanished entirely from the memory of the people,
and more especially of Moses, the mere knowledge of the name
would not have been of much use to them. The question,
"What is His name?" presupposed that the name expressed the
nature and operations of God, and that God would manifest in
deeds the nature expressed in His name. God therefore told
him His name, or, to speak more correctly, He explained the
name mrp, by which He had made Himself known to Abraham
at the making of the covenant (Gen. xv, 7), in this way, n*iW
•T™ ^% " I am that I am" and designated Himself by this
name as the absolute God of the fathers, acting with unfettered
liberty and self-dependence (cf. pp. 74-6). This name precluded
any comparison between the God of the Israelites and the deities
of the Egyptians and other nations, and furnished Moses and
his people with strong consolation in their affliction, and a power-
ful support to their confidence in the realization of His purposes
of salvation as made known to the fathers. To establish them
in this confidence, God added still further : " This is My name
for ever, and My memorial unto all generations ;" that is to say,
God would even manifest Himself in the nature expressed by
the name Jehovah, and by this He would have all generations
both know and revere Him. DE>, the name, expresses the objec-
tive manifestation of the divine nature ; "13T, memorial, the sub-
jective recognition of that nature on the part of men. "H ~n, as
in chap. xvii. 16 and Pro v. xxvii. 24. The repetition of the
same word suggests the idea of uninterrupted continuance and
8tood nothing more by the expression " serve God" than the offering of
sacrifice, this would not justify us in restricting the words which Jehovah
addressed to Moses, " When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt,
ye shall serve God upon this mountain," to the first national offering, or to
the covenant sacrifice.
CHAP. III. 16-20. 443
boundless duration (Eioald, § 313a). The more usual expres-
sion is I1!} *n, Deut. xxxii. 7 ; Ps. x. 6, xxxiii. 11 ; or DnM "H,
Ps. Ixxii. 5, cii. 25 ; Isa. li. 8.
Vers. 16-20. With the command, " Go and gather the elders
of Israel together," God then gave Moses further instructions
with reference to the execution of his mission. On his arrival
in Egypt he was first of all to inform the elders, as the repre-
sentatives of the nation (i.e. the heads of the families, house-
holds, and tribes), of the appearance of God to him, and the
revelation of His design, to deliver His people out of Egypt and
bring them to the land of the Canaanites. He was then to go
with them to Pharaoh, and make known to him their resolution,
in consequence of this appearance of God, to go a three days'
journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to their God. The
words, " / have surely visited" point to the fulfilment of the last
words of the dying Joseph (Gen. 1. 24). wJ$ nnpj (Ver. 18)
does not mean " He is named upon us" (LXX., Onk., Jon.), nor
"He has called us" (Vulg., Luth.). The latter is grammatically
wrong, for the verb is Niphal, or passive ; and though the former
has some support in the parallel passage in chap. v. 3, inasmuch
as N"}i?3 is the verb used there, it is only in appearance, for if the
meaning really were " His name is named upon (over) us," the
word iE^ (OB*) would not be omitted (yid. Deut. xxviii. 10;
2 Chron. vii. 14). The real meaning is, " He has met with us,"
from !"i")i??, obruam fieri, ordinarily construed with ?K, but here
with ?V, because God comes down from above to meet with man.
The plural us is used, although it was only to Moses that God
appeared, because His appearing had reference to the whole
nation, which was represented before Pharaoh by Moses and the
elders. In the words fcUTwJ, " we will go, then" equivalent to
" let us go," the request for Pharaoh's permission to go out is
couched in such a form as to answer to the relation of Israel to
Pharaoh. He had no right to detain them, but he had a right
to consent to their departure, as his predecessor had formerly
done to their settlement. Still less had he any good reason for
refusing their request to go a three days' journey into the wil-
derness and sacrifice to their God, since their return at the close
of the festival was then taken for granted. But the purpose of
God was, that Israel should not return. Was it the case, then,
that the delegates were " to deceive the king," as Knohel affirms ?
444 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
By no means. God knew the hard heart of Pharaoh, and there-
fore directed that no more should be asked at first than he must
either grant, or display the hardness of his heart. Had he con-
sented, God would then have made known to him His whole
design, and demanded that His people should be allowed to
depart altogether. But when Pharaoh scornfully refused the
first and smaller request (chap, v.), Moses was instructed to
demand the entire departure of Israel from the land (vi. 10), and
to show the omnipotence of the God of the Hebrews before and
upon Pharaoh by miracles and heavy judgments (vii. 8 sqq.).
Accordingly, Moses persisted in demanding permission for the
people to go and serve their God (vii. 16, 26, viii. 16, ix. 1, 13,
x. 3) ; and it was not till Pharaoh offered to allow them to sacri-
fice in the land that Moses replied, " We will go three days'
journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to Jehovah our God"
(viii. 27) ; but, observe, with this proviso, " as He shall command
us," which left, under the circumstances, no hope that they would
return. It was an act of mercy to Pharaoh, therefore, on the
one hand, that the entire departure of the Israelites was not de-
manded at the very first audience of Moses and the representa-
tives of the nation ; for, had this been demanded, it would have
been far more difficult for him to bend his heart in obedience to
the divine will, than when the request presented was as trifling
as it was reasonable. And if he had rendered obedience to the
will of God in the smaller, God would have given him strength
to be faithful in the greater. On the other hand, as God fore-
saw his resistance (ver. 19), this condescension, which demanded
no more than the natural man could have performed, was also
to answer the purpose of clearly displaying the justice of God.
It was to prove alike to Egyptians and Israelites that Pharaoh
was " without excuse," and that his eventual destruction was
the well-merited punishment of his obduracy.1 njW T3 Nvl, " not
even by means of a strong hand" "except through great power"
is not the true rendering, for N?l does not mean iav fit), nisi.
What follows, — viz. the statement that God would so smite the
1 "This moderate request was made only at the period of the earlier
plagues. It served to put Pharaoh to the proof. God did not come forth
with His whole plan and desire at first, that his obduracy might appear
so much the more glaring, and find no excuse in the greatness of the re-
quirement. Had Pharaoh granted this request, Israel would not have gone
CHAP. III. 21, 22. 445
Egyptians with miracles that Pharaoh would, after all, let Israel
go (ver. 20),— is not really at variance with this, the only admis-
sible rendering of the words. For the meaning is, that Pharaoh
would not be willing to let Israel depart even when he should
be smitten by the strong hand of God ; but that he would be
compelled to do so against his will, would be forced to do so by
the plagues that were about to fall upon Egypt. Thus even
after the ninth plague it is still stated (chap. x. 27), that " Pharaoh
would (rOK) not let them go ;" and when he had given permission,
in consequence of the last plague, and in fact had driven them out
(xii. 31), he speedily repented, and pursued them with his army to
bring them back again (xiv. 5 sqq.) ; from which it is clearly to
be seen that the strong hand of God had not broken his will, and
yet Israel was brought out by the same strong hand of Jehovah.
Vers. 21, 22. Not only would God compel Pharaoh to let
Israel go ; He would not let His people go out empty, but, ac-
cording to the promise in Gen. xv. 14, with great substance. "/
will give this people favour in the eyes of the Egyptians" that is
to say, the Egyptians should be so favourably disposed towards
them, that when they solicited of their neighbours clothes and
ornaments of gold and silver, their request should be granted.
" So shall ye spoil the Egyptians." What is here foretold as a
promise, the Israelites are directed to do in chap. xi. 2, 3 ; and
according to chap. xii. 35, 36, it was really carried out. Imme-
diately before their departure from Egypt, the Israelites asked
(£m£) the Egyptians for gold and silver ornaments (D75 not
vessels, either for sacrifice, the house, or the table, but jewels ;
cf. Gen. xxiv. 53 ; Ex. xxxv. 22 ; Num. xxxi. 50) and clothes ;
and God gave them favour in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that
they gave them to them. For ntfK n$>KB>, "Let every woman ask
of her (female) neighbour and of her that sojourneth in her house"
(FilTa rn3, from which it is evident that the Israelites did not live
apart, but along with the Egyptians), we find in chap. xi. 2,
" Let every man ask of his neighbour, and every woman of her
(female) neighbour." — &$£%), " and put them upon your sons and
beyond it ; but had not God foreseen, what He repeatedly says (compare,
for instance, chap. iii. 18), that he would not comply with it, He would not
thus have presented it ; He would from the beginning have revealed His
whole design. Thus Augustine remarks (quzest. 13 in Ex.)." Hengstenberg,
Diss, on the Pentateuch, vol. ii. p. 427, Ryland's translation. Clark, 1847.
446 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
daughters!' ?V D^, to put on, applied to clothes and ornaments
in Lev. viii. 8 and Gen. xli. 42. This command and its execu-
tion have frequently given occasion to the opponents of the
Scriptures to throw contempt upon the word of God, the asking
being regarded as borrowing, and the spoiling of the Egyptians
as purloining. At the same time, the attempts made to vindicate
this purloining from the wickedness of stealing have been in
many respects unsatisfactory.1 But the only meaning of ?$& is
to ask or beg,2 and ?,|NB>nj which is only met with in chap. xii. 36
and 1 Sam. i. 28, does not mean to lend, but to suffer to ask, to
hear and grant a request. DWE^ (chap. xii. 36), lit. they allowed
them to ask; i.e. "the Egyptians did not turn away the petition-
ers, as not wanting to listen to them, but received their petition
with good-will, and granted their request. No proof can be
brought that ^NUJn means to lend, as is commonly supposed ; the
word occurs again in 1 Sam. i. 28, and there it means to grant
or give" (Knob el on chap. xii. 36). Moreover the circum-
stances under which the ?$& and ^KK'n took place, were quite at
variance with the idea of borrowing and lending. For even if
Moses had not spoken without reserve of the entire departure of
the Israelites, the plagues which followed one after another, and
with which the God of the Hebrews gave emphasis to His de-
mand as addressed through Moses to Pharaoh, " Let My people
go, that they may serve Me," must have made it evident to every
Egyptian, that all this had reference to something greater than
a three days' march to celebrate a festival. And under these
circumstances no Egyptian could have cherished the thought,
that the Israelites were only borrowing the jewels they asked of
them, and would return them after the festival. What they
gave under such circumstances, they could only give or present
without the slightest prospect of restoration. Still less could
the Israelites have had merely the thought of borrowing in their
mind, seeing that God had said to Moses, "I will give the
Israelites favour in the eyes of the Egyptians ; and it will come
to pass, that when ye go out, ye shall not go out empty" (ver.
21). If, therefore, it is " natural to suppose that these jewels
1 For the different views as to the supposed borrowing of the gold and
silver vessels, see Hengstenberg, Dissertations on the Pentateuch, vol. ii. pp.
419 sqq., and Kurtz, History of the Old Covenant, vol. ii. 319 sqq.
2 Even in 2 Kings v. 6 ; see my commentary on the passage.
CHAP. IV. 1-9. 447
were festal vessels with which the Egyptians furnished the poor
Israelites for the intended feast," and even if " the Israelites
had their thoughts directed with all seriousness to the feast
which they were about to celebrate to Jehovah in the desert"
(Baumgarteii) ; their request to the Egyptians cannot have re-
ferred to any borrowing, nor have presupposed any intention to
restore what they received on their return. From the very first
the Israelites asked without intending to restore, and the Egyp-
tians granted their request without any hope of receiving back,
because God had made their hearts favourably disposed to the
Israelites. The expressions D^OTIK DFipJH in ver. 22, and TOO^ in
chap. xii. 36, are not at variance with this, but rather require it.
For ?VJ does not mean to purloin, to steal, to take away secretly
by cunning and fraud, but to plunder (2 Chron. xx. 25), as both
the LXX. (crKvXeveiv) and Vulgate (spoliare) have rendered it.
Rosenmuller, therefore, is correct in his explanation : "Et spoli-
abitis JEgyptios, ita ut ab JEgyptiis, qui vos tarn dura servitute
oppresserunt, spolia auferetis" So also is Hengstenberg, who
says, "The author represents the Israelites as going forth,
laden as it were with the spoils of their formidable enemy,
trophies of the victory which God's power had bestowed on
their weakness. While he represents the gifts of the Egyp-
tians as spoils which God had distributed to His host (as
Israel is called in chap. xii. 41), he leads us to observe that
the bestowment of these gifts, which outwardly appeared to be
the effect of the good-will of the Egyptians, if viewed more
deeply, proceeded from another Giver ; that the outwardly free
act of the Egyptians was effected by an inward divine constraint
which they could not withstand" (Dissertations, vol. ii. p. 431). —
Egypt had spoiled Israel by the tributary labour so unjustly en-
forced, and now Israel carried off the spoil of Egypt — a prelude
to the victory which the people of God will one day obtain in
their conflict with the power of the world (cf. Zech. xiv. 14).
Chap. iv. 1-9. Moses now started a fresh difficulty : the
Israelites would not believe that Jehovah had appeared to him.
There was so far a reason for this difficulty, that from the time
of Jacob — an interval, therefore, of 430 years — God had never
appeared to any Israelite. God therefore removed it by giving
him three signs by which he might attest his divine mission to his
people. These three signs were intended indeed for the Israelites,
448 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
to convince them of the reality of the appearance of Jehovah to
Moses ; at the same time, as even Ephraem Syrus observed, they
also served to strengthen Moses' faith, and dissipate his fears as
to the result of his mission. For it was apparent enough that
Moses did not possess true and entire confidence in God, from
the fact that he still raised this difficulty, and distrusted the
divine assurance, "They will hearken to thy voice," chap. iii.
18). And finally, these signs were intended for Pharaoh, as is
stated in ver. 21 ; and to him the niriK (crrj/xeia) were to become
D'TiSb (repara). By these signs Moses was installed as the ser-
vant of Jehovah (xiv. 31), and furnished with divine power,
with which he could and was to appear before the children of
Israel and Pharaoh as the messenger of Jehovah. The character
of the three signs corresponded to this intention.
Vers. 2-5. The first sign. — The turning of Moses' staff
into a serpent, which became a staff again when Moses took it
by the tail, had reference to the calling of Moses. The staff in
his hand was his shepherd's crook (TO ver. 2, for nrnv} in this
place alone), and represented his calling as a shepherd. At the
bidding of God he threw it upon the ground, and the staff be-
came a serpent, before which Moses fled. The giving up of his
shepherd-life would expose him to dangers, from which he would
desire to escape. At the same time, there was more implied in
the figure of a serpent than danger which merely threatened his
life. The serpent had been the constant enemy of the seed of
the woman (Gen. iii.), and represented the power of the wicked
one which prevailed in Egypt. The explanation in Pirke Elieser,
c. 40, points to this : ideo Deum hoc sigmim Mosi ostendisse, quia
sicut serpens mordet et morte afftcit homines, ita quogue Pharao et
JEgyptii mordebant et necabant Israelitas. But at the bidding of
God, Moses seized the serpent by the tail, and received his staff
again as " the rod of God," with which he smote Egypt with
great plagues. From this sign the people of Israel would neces-
sarily perceive, that Jehovah had not only called Moses to be the
leader of Israel, but had endowed him with the power to over-
come the serpent-like cunning and the might of Egypt ; in other
words, they would " believe that Jehovah, the God of the fathers,
had appeared to him." (On the special meaning of this sign for
Pharaoh, sec chap. vii. 10 sqq.)
CHAP. IV. 6, 7. 449
Vers. 6, 7. The second sign. — Moses' hand became leprous,
and was afterwards cleansed again. The expression J 7^3 njnVt?,
covered with leprosy like snow, refers to the white leprosy (y id.
Lev. xiii. o). — " Was turned again as Ms flesh" i.e. was restored,
became healthy, or clean like the rest of his body. So far as
the meaning of this sign is concerned, Moses' hand has been
explained in a perfectly arbitrary manner as representing the
Israelitish nation, and his bosom as representing first Egypt, and
then Canaan, as the hiding-place of Israel. If the shepherd's
staff represented Moses' calling, the hand was that which directed
or ruled the calling. It is in the bosom that the nurse carries
the sucking child (Num. xi. 12), the shepherd the lambs (Isa.
xl. 11), and the sacred singer the many nations, from whom he
has suffered reproach and injury (Ps. Ixxxix. 50). So Moses
also carried his people in his bosom, i.e. in his heart : of that his
first appearance in Egypt was a proof (chap. ii. 11, 12). But
now he was to set his hand to deliver them from the reproach
and bondage of Egypt. He put (K'On) his hand into his bosom,
and his hand was covered with leprosy. The nation was like a
leper, who defiled every one that touched him. The leprosy
represented not only " the servitude and contemptuous treatment
of the Israelites in Egypt" {Kurtz), but the aaefieia of the
Egyptians also, as Theodoret expresses it, or rather the impurity
of Egypt in which Israel was sunken. This Moses soon dis-
covered (cf. chap. v. 17 sqq.), and on more than one occasion
afterwards (cf . Num. xi.) ; so that he had to complain to Jehovah,
"Wherefore hast Thou afflicted Thy servant, that Thou layest the
burden of all this people upon me ? . . . Have I conceived all
this people, that Thou shouldest say to me, Carry them in thy
bosom ?" (Num. xi. 11, 12). But God had the power to purify
the nation from this leprosy, and would endow His servant
Moses with that power. At the command of God, Moses put
his hand, now covered with leprosy, once more into his bosom,
and drew it out quite cleansed. This was what Moses was to
learn by the sign ; whilst Israel also learned that God both could
and would deliver it, through the cleansed hand of Moses, from
all its bodily and spiritual misery. The object of the first miracle
was to exhibit Moses as the man whom Jehovah had called to
be the leader of His people ; that of the second, to show that, as
the messenger of Jehovah, he was furnished with the necessarv
450 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
power for the execution of this calling. In this sense God says,
in ver. 8, " If they will not hearken to the voice of the first sign,
they icill believe the voice of the latter sign." A voice is ascribed
to the sign, as being a clear witness to the divine mission of the
person performing it (Ps. cv. 27).
Ver. 9. The third sign. — If the first two signs should not
be sufficient to lead the people to believe in the divine mission of
Moses, he was to give them one more practical demonstration of
the power which he had received to overcome the might and
gods of Egypt. He was to take of the water of the Nile (the
river, Gen. xli. 1) and pour it upon the dry land, and it would
become blood (the second Vnt is a resumption of the first, cf.
chap. xii. 41). The Nile received divine honours as the source
of every good and all prosperity in the natural life of Egypt,
and was even identified with Osiris (cf. Ilengstenberg, Egypt and
the Books of Moses, p. 109 transl.). If Moses therefore had
power to turn the life-distributing water of the Nile into blood,
he must also have received power to destroy Pharaoh and his
gods. Israel was to learn this from the sign, whilst Pharaoh
and the Egyptians were afterwards to experience this might of
Jehovah in the form of punishment (chap. vii. 15 sqq.). Thus
Moses was not only entrusted with the word of God, but also
endowed with the power of God ; and as he was the first God-sent
prophet, so was he also the first worker of miracles, and in this
capacity a type of the Apostle of our profession (Heb. iii. 1), even
the God-man, Christ Jesus.
Vers. 10-18. Moses raised another difficulty. u I am not a
man of words" he said (i.e. I do not possess the gift of speech),
" but am heavy in month and heavy in tongue" (i.e. I find a diffi-
culty in the use of mouth and tongue, not exactly "stammering") ;
and that " both of yesterday and the day before" (i.e. from the very
first, Gen.xxxi. 2), " and also since Thy speaking to Thy servant."
Moses meant to say, "I neither possess the gift of speech by
nature, nor have I received it since Thou hast spoken to me." —
Vers. 11, 12. Jehovah both could and would provide for this
defect. He had made man's mouth, and He made dumb or deaf,
seeing or blind. He possessed unlimited power over all the
senses, could give them or take them away ; and He would be
with Moses' mouth, and teach him what he was to say, i.e.
CHAP. IV. 10-18. 451
impart to him the necessary qualification both as to matter
and mode. — Moses' difficulties were now all exhausted, and re-
moved by the assurances of God. But this only brought to light
the secret reason in his heart. He did not wish to undertake
the divine mission. — Ver. 13. "Send, I pray Thee" he says, " hy
whom Thou ivilt send" i.e. carry out Thy mission by whomsoever
Thou wilt. "P3 JW : to carry out a mission through any one,
originally with accas. rei (1 Sam. xvi. 20 ; 2 Sam. xi. 14), then
without the object, as here, "to send a person" (cf. 2 Sam. xii.
25 ; 1 Kings ii. 25). Before rfojfa the word "W« is omitted,
which stands with T3 in the construct state (yid. Ges. § 123, 3).
The anger of God was now excited by this groundless opposition.
But as this unwillingness also arose from weakness of the flesh,
the mercy of God came to the help of his weakness, and He
referred Moses to his brother Aaron, who could speak well, and
would address the people for him (vers. 14-17). Aaron is called
*l?n, the Levite, from his lineage, possibly with reference to the
primary signification of ni7 " to connect one's self " (Baumgarten),
but not with any allusion to the future calling of the tribe of Levi
(Bashi and Calvin), S^n 13CV ISR speak will he. The inf. abs.
gives emphasis to the verb, and the position of Kin to the subject.
He both can and will speak, if thou dost not know it. — Vers. 14,
15. And Aaron is quite ready to do so. He is already coming
to meet thee, and is glad to see thee. The statement in ver. 27,
where Jehovah directs Aaron to go and meet Moses, is not at
variance with this. They can both be reconciled in the following
simple manner : " As soon as Aaron heard that his brother had
left Midian, he went to meet him of his own accord, and then God
showed him by what road he must go to find him, viz. towards
the desert'" (i?. Mose ben Nachman). — "Put the words" {sc. which
I have told thee) " into his mouth ;" and I will support both thee
and him in speaking. " He will be mouth to thee, a)id thou shall
be God to him." Cf. vii. 1, "Thy brother Aaron shall be thy
prophet." Aaron would stand in the same relation to Moses, as
a prophet to God : the prophet only spoke what God inspired
him with, and Moses should be the inspiring God to him. The
Targum softens down the word " God" into " master, teacher."
Moses was called God, as being the possessor and medium of the
divine word. As Luther explains it, " Whoever possesses and
believes the word of God, possesses the Spirit and power of God,
452 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
and also the divine wisdom, truth, heart, mind, and everything
that belongs to God." In ver. 17, the plural " signs" points to the
penal wonders that followed; for only one of the three signs given
to Moses was performed with the rod. — Ver. 18. Tn consequence
of this appearance of God, Moses took leave of his father-in-law
to return to his brethren in Egypt, though without telling him
the real object of his journey, no doubt because Jethro had not
the mind to understand such a divine revelation, though he sub-
sequently recognised the miracles that God wrought for Israel
(chap, xviii.). By the " brethren" we are to understand not
merely the nearer relatives of Moses, or the family of Amram,
but the Israelites generally. Considering the oppression under
which they were suffering at the time of Moses' flight, the ques-
tion might naturally arise, whether they were still living, and
had not been altogether exterminated.
Vers. 19—31. Return of Moses to Egyft. — Vers. 19-23.
On leaving Midian, Moses received another communication from
God with reference to his mission to Pharaoh. The word of
Jehovah, in ver. 19, is not to be regarded as a summary of the
previous revelation, in which case "i^'l would be a pluperfect,
nor as the account of another writer, who placed the summons
to return to Egypt not in Sinai but in Midian. It is not a fact
that the departure of Moses is given in ver. 18 ; all that is
stated there is, that Jethro consented to Moses' decision to return
to Egypt. It was not till after this consent that Moses was able
to prepare for the journey. During these preparations God
appeared to him in Midian, and encouraged him to return, by
informing him that all the men who had sought his life, i.e.
Pharaoh and the relatives of the Egyptian whom he had slain,
were now dead. — Ver. 20. Moses then set out upon his journey,
with his wife and sons. VJ3 is not to be altered into fall, as
Knob el supposes, notwithstanding the fact that the birth of only
one son has hitherto been mentioned (chap. ii. 22) ; for neither
there, nor in this passage (ver. 25), is he described as the only
son. The wife and sons, who were still young, he placed upon
the ass (the one taken for the purpose), whilst he himself went
on foot with " the staff of God" — as the staff was called with
which he was to perform the divine miracles (ver. 17) — in his
hand. Poor as his outward appearance might be, he had in his
CHAP. IV. 19-31. 453
hand the staff before which the pride of Pharaoh and all his
might would have to bow. — Ver. 21. " In thy going (returning)
to Egypt, behold, all the wonders which I have put into thy hand,
thou doest them before Pharaoh." fiSto, to repas, portentum, is
any object (natural event, thing, or person) of significance which
surpasses expectation or the ordinary course of nature, and
excites wonder in consequence. It is frequently connected with
nix, arj/xelov, a sign (Deut. iv. 34, vi. 22, vii. 19, etc.), and em-
braces the idea of niN within itself, i.e. wonder-sign. The ex-
pression, " all those wonders," does not refer merely to the three
signs mentioned in chap. iv. 2-9, but to all the miracles which
were to be performed by Moses with the staff in the presence of
Pharaoh, and which, though not named, were put into his hand
potentially along with the staff. — But all the miracles would not
induce Pharaoh to let Israel go, for Jehovah would harden his
heart. ^P"DX p-iriN "ON, lit. I will make his heart firm, so that it
will not move, his feelings and attitude towards Israel will not
change. For \>)m \?X or WJHTI1 (xiv. 4) and p?n» »« (xiv. 17),
we find "T^i?*? *3£ in chap. vii. 3, " I will make Pharaoh's heart
Imrd, or unfeeling;" and in chap. x. 1, *n*12Dfl V*? " I have made
his heart Jieavy," i.e. obtuse, or insensible to impressions or divine
influences. These three words are expressive of the hardening
of the heart.
The hardening of Pharaoh is ascribed to God, not only in
the passages just quoted, but also in chap. ix. 12, x. 20, 27,
xi. 10, xiv. 8 ; that is to say, ten times in all ; and that not
merely as foreknown or foretold by Jehovah, but as caused and
effected by Him. In the last five passages it is invariably
stated that "Jehovah hardened (JW) Pharaoh's heart." But
it is also stated just as often, viz. ten times, that Pharaoh har-
dened his own heart, or made it heavy or firm ; e.g. in chap,
vii. 13, 22, viii. 15, ix. 35, a!? ptrm " and Pharaoh's heart was
(or became) hard;" chap. vii. 14, 3? 133 " Pharaoh's^ heart was
heavy ;" in chap. ix. 7, ? ^3^ ; in chap. viii. -34, £8, ix. 34,
i&m nM»l_ or *!3?rn ; in chap.'xiii. 15, 'a ntrpn 13 u for Pharaoh
made his heart hard." According to this, the hardening of
Pharaoh was quite as much his own act as the decree of God.
But if, in order to determine the precise relation of the divine
to the human causality, we look more carefully at the two classes
of expressions, we shall find that not only in connection with
454 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
the first sign, by which Moses and Aaron were to show their
credentials as the messengers of Jehovah, sent with the demand
that he would let the people of Israel go (chap. vii. 13, 14),
but after the first five penal miracles, the hardening is invari-
ably represented as his own. After every one of these miracles,
it is stated that Pharaoh's heart was firm, or dull, i.e. insensible
to the voice of God, and unaffected by the miracles performed
before his eyes, and the judgments of God suspended over him
and his kingdom, and he did not listen to them (to Moses and
Aaron with their demand), or let the people go (chap. vii. 22,
viii. 8, 15, 28, ix. 7). It is not till after the sixth plague that it
is stated that Jehovah made the heart of Pharaoh firm (ix. 12).
At the seventh the statement is repeated, that " Pharaoh made
his heart heavy" (ix. 34, 35) ; but the continued refusal on the
part of Pharaoh after the eighth and ninth (x. 20, 27) and his
resolution to follow the Israelites and bring them back again,
are attributed to the hardening of his heart by Jehovah (chap,
xiv. 8, cf. vers. 4 and 17). This hardening of his own heart was
manifested first of all in the fact, that he paid no attention to the
demand of Jehovah addressed to him through Moses, and would
not let Israel go ; and that not only at the commencement, so
long as the Egyptian magicians imitated the signs performed by
Moses and Aaron (though at the very first sign the rods of the
magicians, when turned into serpents, were swallowed by Aaron's,
vii. 12, 13), but even when the magicians themselves acknow-
ledged, "This is the finger of God" (viii. 19). It was also con-
tinued after the fourth and fifth plagues, when a distinction was
made between the Egyptians and the Israelites, and the latter
were exempted from the plagues, — a fact of which the king took
care to convince himself (ix. 7). And it was exhibited still
further in his breaking his promise, that he would let Israel go
if Moses and Aaron would obtain from Jehovah the removal of
the plague, and in the fact, that even after he had been obliged
to confess, " I have sinned, Jehovah is the righteous one, I and
my people are unrighteous" (ix. 27), he sinned again, as soon as
breathing-time was given him, and would not let the people go
(ix. 34, 35). Thus Pharaoh would not bend his self-will to the
will of God, even after he had discerned the finger of God and
the omnipotence of Jehovah in the plagues suspended over him
and his nation; he would not withdraw his haughty refusal, not
CHAP. IV. 19-31. 455
withstanding the fact that he was obliged to acknowledge that it
was sin against Jehovah. Looked at from this side, the harden-
ing was a fruit of sin, a consequence of that self-will, high-mind-
edness, and pride which flow from sin, and a continuous and
ever increasing abuse of that freedom of the will wdiich is innate
in man, and which involves the possibility of obstinate resistance
to the word and chastisement of God even until death. As the
freedom of the will has its fixed limits in the unconditional
dependence of the creature upon the Creator, so the sinner may
resist the will of God as long as he lives. But such resistance
plunges him into destruction, and is followed inevitably by death
and damnation. God never allows any man to scoff at Him.
Whoever will not suffer himself to be led, by the kindness
and earnestness of the divine admonitions, to repentance and
humble submission to the will of God, must inevitably perish,
and by his destruction subserve the glory of God, and the mani-
festation of the holiness, righteousness, and omnipotence of
Jehovah.
But God not only permits a man to harden himself ; He also
produces obduracy, and suspends this sentence over the impeni-
tent. Not as though God took pleasure in the death of the
wicked ! No ; God desires that the wicked should repent of his
evil way and live (Ezek. xxxiii. 11) ; and He desires this most
earnestly, for " He will have all men to be saved and to come
unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. ii. 4, cf. 2 Pet. iii. 9).
As God causes His earthly sun to rise upon the evil and the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust (Matt. v. 45),
so He causes His sun of grace to shine upon all sinners, to lead
them to life and salvation. But as the earthly sun produces dif-
ferent effects upon the earth, according to the nature of the soil
upon which it shines, so the influence of the divine sun of grace
manifests itself in different ways upon the human heart, accord-
ing to its moral condition.1 The penitent permit the proofs of
divine goodness and grace to lead them to repentance and salva-
tion ; but the impenitent harden themselves more and more
1 "The sun, by the force of its heat, moistens the wax and dries the clay,
softening the one and hardening the other ; and as this produces opposite
effects by the same power, so, through the long-suffering of God, which
reaches to all, some receive good and others evil, some are softened and
others hardened." — (Theodoret, qus&st. 12 in Ex.)
456 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
against the grace of God, and so become ripe for the judgment
of damnation. The very same manifestation of the mercy of
God leads in the case of the one to salvation and life, and in
that of the other to judgment and death, because he hardens
himself against that mercy. In this increasing hardness on the
part of the impenitent sinner against the mercy that is mani-
fested towards him, there is accomplished the judgment of re-
probation, first in God's furnishing the wicked with an oppor-
tunity of bringing fully to light the evil inclinations, desires,
and thoughts that are in their hearts ; and then, according to an
invariable law of the moral government of the world, in His
rendering the return of the impenitent sinner more and more
difficult on account of his continued resistance, and eventually
rendering it altogether impossible. It is the curse of sin, that it
renders the hard heart harder, and less susceptible to the gracious
manifestations of divine love, long-suffering, and patience. In
this twofold manner God produces hardness, not only permissive
but effective ; i.e. not only by giving time and space for the mani-
festation of human opposition, even to the utmost limits of
creaturely freedom, but still more by those continued manifes-
tations of His will which drive the hard heart to such utter
obduracy that it is no longer capable of returning, and so giving
over the hardened sinner to the judgment of damnation. This
is what we find in the case of Pharaoh. After he had hardened
his heart against the revealed will of God during the first five
plagues, the hardening commenced on the part of Jehovah with
the sixth miracle (ix. 12), when the omnipotence of God was
displayed with such energy that even the Egyptian magicians
were covered with the boils, and could no longer stand before
Moses (ix. 11). And yet, even after this hardening on the part
of God, another opportunity was given to the wicked king to
repent and change his mind, so that on two other occasions he
acknowledged that his resistance was sin, and promised to submit
to the will of Jehovah (ix. 27 sqq., x. 16 sqq.). But when at
length, even after the seventh plague, he broke his promise to
let Israel go, and hardened his heart again as soon as the plague
was removed (ix. 34, 35), Jehovah so hardened Pharaoh's heart
that he not only did not let Israel go, but threatened Moses with
death if he ever came into his presence again (x. 20, 27, 28).
The hardening was now completed, so that he necessarily fell a
CHAP. IV. 22, 23. 457
victim to judgment; though the very first stroke of judgment
in the slaying of the first-born was an admonition to consider
and return. Audit was not till after he had rejected the mercy
displayed in this judgment, and manifested a defiant spirit once
more, in spite of the words with which he had given Moses and
Aaron permission to depart, "Go, and bless me also" (xii. 31, 32),
that God completely hardened his heart, so that he pursued the
Israelites with an army, and was overtaken by the judgment of
utter destruction.
Now, although the hardening of Pharaoh on the part of
Jehovah was only the complement of Pharaoh's hardening of
his own heart, in the verse before us the former aspect alone is
presented, because the principal object was not only to prepare
Moses for the opposition which he would meet with from Pha-
raoh, but also to strengthen his weak faith, and remove at the
very outset every cause for questioning the omnipotence of
Jehovah. If it was by Jehovah Himself that Pharaoh was
hardened, this hardening, which He not only foresaw and pre-
dicted by virtue of His omniscience, but produced and inflicted
through His omnipotence, could not possibly hinder the perform-
ance of His will concerning Israel, but must rather contribute
to the realization of His purposes of salvation and the manifes-
tation of His glory (cf. chap. ix. 16, x. 2, xiv. 4, 17, 18).
Vers. 22, 23. In order that Pharaoh might form a true esti-
mate of the solemnity of the divine command, Moses was to
make known to him not only the relation of Jehovah to Israel,
but also the judgment to which he would be exposed if he re-
fused to let Israel go. The relation in which Israel stood to
Jehovah was expressed by God in the words, " Israel is My first-
born son." Israel was Jehovah's son by virtue of his election to
be the people of possession (Deut. xiv. 1, 2). This election
began with the call of Abraham to be the father of the nation
in which all the families of the earth were to be blessed. On
the ground of this promise, which was now to be realized in the
seed of Abraham by the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, the
nation of Israel is already called Jehovah's " son," although it
was through the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai that it was
first exalted to be the people of Jehovah's possession out of all
the nations (xix. 5, 6). The divine sonship of Israel was there-
fore spiritual in its nature ; it neither sprang from the fact that
PENT. — VOL. I. 2 G
458 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
God, as the Creator of all nations, was also tlie Creator, or Be-
getter, and Father of Israel, nor was it founded, as Baumgarten
supposes, upon " the physical generation of Isaac, as having
its origin, not in the power of nature, but in the power of grace."
The relation of God, as Creator, to man His creature, is never
referred to in the Old Testament as that of a father to a son ;
to say nothing of the fact that the Creator of man is Elohim,
and not Jehovah. Wherever Jehovah is called the Father,
Begetter, or Creator of Israel (even in Deut. xxxii. 18 ; Jer. ii.
27 ; Isa. lxiv. 8 ; Mai. i. 6 and ii. 10), the fatherhood of God
relates to the election of Israel as Jehovah's people of possession.
But the election upon which the vioOeala of Israel was founded,
is not presented in the aspect of a " begetting through the
Spirit;" it is spoken of rather as acquiring or buying (nJi?),
making QWV), founding or establishing (£3, .Deut. xxxii. 6).
Even the expressions, " the Rock that begat thee," " God that
bare thee" (Deut. xxxii. 18), do not point to the idea of spiritual
generation, but are to be understood as referring to the creation ;
just as in Ps. xc. 2, where Moses speaks of the mountains as
"brought forth" and the earth as "born." The choosing of
Israel as the son of God was an adoption flowing from the free
grace of God, which involved the loving, fatherly treatment of
the son, and demanded obedience, reverence, and confidence
towards the Father (Mai. i. 6). It was this which constituted
the very essence of the covenant made by Jehovah with Israel,
that He treated it with mercy and love (Hos. xi. 1 ; Jer. xxxi.
9, 20), pitied it as a father pitieth his children (Ps. ciii. 13),
chastened it on account of its sins, yet did not withdraw His
mercy from it (2 Sam. vii. 14, 15 ; Ps. lxxxix. 31—35), and
trained His son to be a holy nation by the love and severity of
paternal discipline. — Still Israel was not only a son, but the
" first-born son" of Jehovah. In this title the calling of the
heathen is implied. Israel was not to be Jehovah's only son,
but simply the first-born, who was peculiarly dear to his Father,
and had certain privileges above the rest. Jehovah was about
to exalt Israel above all the nations of the earth (Deut. xxviii. 1).
Now, if Pharaoh would not let Jehovah's first-born son depart,
he would pay the penalty in the life of his own first-born (cf.
xii. 29). In this intense earnestness of the divine command,
Moses had a strong support to his faith. If Israel was Jehovah's
CHAP. IV. 24-26. 459
first-born son, Jehovah could not relinquish him, but must deliver
His son from the bondage of Egypt.
Vers. 24-26. But if Moses was to carry out the divine com-
mission with success, he must first of all prove himself to be a
faithful servant of Jehovah in his own house. This he was to
learn from the occurrence at the inn : an occurrence which has
many obscurities on account of the brevity of the narrative, and
has received many different interpretations. When Moses was
on the way, Jehovah met him at the resting-place (JvO, see Gen.
xlii. 27), and sought to kill him. In what manner, is not stated :
whether by a sudden seizure with some fatal disease, or, what is
more probable, by some act proceeding directly from Himself,
which threatened Moses with death. This hostile attitude on
the part, of God was occasioned by his neglect to circumcise his
son ; for, as soon as Zipporah cut off (circumcised) the foreskin
of her son with a stone, Jehovah let him go. "lte=*Vi¥, a rock,
or stone, here a stone knife, with which, according to hereditary
custom, the circumcision commanded by Joshua was also per-
formed ; not, however, because " stone knives were regarded as
less dangerous than those of metal," nor because " for symbolical
reasons preference was given to them, as a simple production of
nature, over the metal knives that had been prepared by human
hands and were applied to daily use." For if the Jews had de-
tected any religious or symbolical meaning in stone, they would
never have given it up for iron or steel, but would have retained
it, like the Ethiopian tribe of the Alnaii, who used stone knives
for that purpose as late as 150 years ago; whereas, in the Tal-
mud, the use of iron or steel knives for the purpose of circum-
cision is spoken of, as though they were universally employed.
Stone knives belong to a time anterior to the manufacture of
iron or steel ; and wherever they were employed at a later
period, this arose from a devoted adherence to the older and
simpler custom (see my Commentary on Josh. v. 2). From the
word "her son" it is evident that Zipporah only circumcised
one of the two sons of Moses (ver. 20) ; so that the other, no
doubt the elder, had already been circumcised in accordance
with the law. Circumcision had been enjoined upon Abraham
by Jehovah as a covenant sign for all his descendants ; and the
sentence of death was pronounced upon any neglect of it, as
being a breach of the covenant (Gen. xvii. 14). Although in
4 GO THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
this passage it is the uncircumcised themselves who are threat-
ened with death, yet in the case of children the punishment fell
upon the parents, and first of all upon the father, who had ne-
glected to keep the commandment of God. Now, though Moses
had probably omitted circumcision simply from regard to his
Midianitish wife, who disliked this operation, he had been guilty
of a capital crime, which God could not pass over in the case of
one whom He had chosen to be His messenger, to establish His
covenant with Israel. Hence He threatened him with death, to
bring him to a consciousness of his sin, either by the voice of
conscience or by some word which accompanied His attack upon
Moses ; and also to show him with what earnestness God de-
manded the keeping of His commandments. Still He did not
kill him ; for his sin had sprung from weakness of the flesh, from
a sinful yielding to his wife, which could both be explained and
excused on account of his position in the Midianite's house.
That Zipporah's dislike to circumcision had been the cause of
the omission, has been justly inferred by commentators from the
fact, that on Jehovah's attack upon Moses, she proceeded at once
to perform what had been neglected, and, as it seems, with in-
ward repugnance. The expression, " She threw (the foreskin of
her son) at his (Moses') feet," points to this (? V^, as in Isa.
xxv. 12). The suffix in VW] (his feet) cannot refer to the son,
not only because such an allusion would give no reasonable
sense, but also because the suffix refers to Moses in the imme-
diate context, both before (in in^L*, ver. 24) and after (in ^ttE,
ver. 2G) ; and therefore it is simpler to refer it to Moses here.
From this it follows, then, that the words, " a blood-bridegroom
art thou to me," were addressed to Moses, and not to the boy.
Zipporah calls Moses a blood-bridegroom, " because she had been
compelled, as it were, to acquire and piirchase him anew as a
husband by shedding the blood of her son" (Glass). "Moses
had been as good as taken from her by the deadly attack which
had been made upon him. She purchased his life by the blood
of her son ; she received him back, as it were, from the dead,
and married him anew ; he was, in fact, a bridegroom of blood
to her" (Kurtz). This she said, as the historian adds, after God
had let Moses go, rri7iB?? " with reference to the circumcisions."
The plural is used quite generally and indefinitely, as Zipporah
referred not merely to this one instance, but to circumcision
CHAP. IV. 27-31, V.-VII. 7. 461
generally. Moses was apparently induced by what had occurred
to decide not to take his wife and children with him to Egypt,
but to send them back to his father-in-law. We may infer this
from the fact, that it was not till after Israel had arrived at Sinai
that he brought them to him again (chap, xviii. 2).
Vers. 27-31. After the removal of the sin, which had ex-
cited the threatening wrath of Jehovah, Moses once more
received a token of the divine favour in the arrival of Aaron,
under the direction of God, to meet him at the Mount of God
(chap. iii. 1). To Aaron he related all the words of Jehovah,
with which He had sent (commissioned) him (rfc& with a double
accusative, as in 2 Sam. xi. 22 ; Jer. xlii. 5), and all the signs
which He had commanded him (n« also with a double accusa-
tive, as in Gen. vi. 22). Another proof of the favour of God
consisted of the believing reception of his mission on the part of
the elders and the people of Israel. "The people believed"
(©S3) when Aaron communicated to them the words of Jehovah
to Moses, and did the signs in their presence. " And when they
heard that Jehovah had visited the children of Israel, and had
holed upon their affliction, they lowed and worshipped'.' {Knobel
is wrong in proposing to alter $D£ into ¥?3fc*j according to the
Sept. rendering, koI ix^pv)- Tne faitn of tlie PeoPle? and tne
worship by which their faith was expressed, proved that the
promise of the fathers still lived in their hearts. And although
this faith did not stand the subsequent test (chap, v.), yet, as the
first expression of their feelings, it bore witness to the fact that
Israel was willing to follow the call of God.
MOSES AND AARON ARE SENT TO PHARAOH. — CHAP. V.-VII. 7.
The two events which form the contents of this section, — viz.
(1) the visit of Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh to make known
the commands of their God, with the harsh refusal of their re-
quest on the part of Pharaoh, by an increase of the tributary
labours of Israel (chap, v.); and (2) the further revelations of
Jehovah to Moses, with the insertion of the genealogies of
Moses and Aaron,— not only hang closely together so far as
the subject-matter is concerned, inasmuch as the fresh declara-
tions of Jehovah to Moses were occasioned by the complaint of
Moses that his first attempt had so signally failed, but both of
462 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
them belong to the complete equipment of Moses for his divine
mission. Their visit to Pharaoh was only preliminary in its
character. Moses and Aaron simply made known to the king
the will of their God, without accrediting themselves by miracu-
lous signs as the messengers of Jehovah, or laying any particular
emphasis upon His demand. For this first step was only in-
tended to enlighten Moses as to the attitude of Pharaoh and the
people of Israel in relation to the work of God, which He was
about to perform. Pharaoh answered the demand addressed to
him, that he would let the people go for a few days to hold a
sacrificial festival in the desert, by increasing their labours ; and
the Israelites complained in consequence that their good name
had been made abhorrent to the king, and their situation made
worse than it was. Moses might have despaired on this account ;
but he laid his trouble before the Lord, and the Lord filled his
despondent heart with fresh courage through the renewed and
strengthened promise that He would now for the first time dis-
play His name Jehovah perfectly — that He would redeem the
children of Israel with outstretched arm and with great judg-
ments— would harden Pharaoh's heart, and do many signs and
wonders in the land of Egypt, that the Egyptians might learn
through the deliverance of Israel that He was Jehovah, i.e. the
absolute God, who works with unlimited freedom (cf. p. 75).
At the same time God removed the difficulty which once more
arose in the mind of Moses, namely, that Pharaoh would not
listen to him because of his want of oratorical power, by the
assurance, "I make thee a god for Pharaoh, and Aaron shall be thy
prophet" (chap. vii. 1), which could not fail to remove all doubt
as to his own incompetency for so great and severe a task. With
this promise Pharaoh was completely given up into Moses' power,
and Moses invested with all the plenipotentiary authority that
was requisite for the performance of the work entrusted to him.
Chap. v. Pharaoh's answer to the request of Moses
and Aaron. — Vers. 1-5. When the elders of Israel had lis-
tened with gladness and gratitude to the communications of
Moses and Aaron respecting the revelation which Moses had re-
ceived from Jehovah, that He was now about to deliver His
people out of their bondage in Egypt; Moses and Aaron pro-
ceeded to Pharaoh, and requested in the name of the God of
CHAP. V. 1-5. 463
Israel, that he would let the people of Israel go and celebrate a
festival in the wilderness in honour of their God. When we
consider that every nation presented sacrifices to its deities,
and celebrated festivals in their honour, and that they had all
their own modes of worship, which were supposed to be ap-
pointed by the gods themselves, so that a god could not be wor-
shipped acceptably in every place ; the demand presented to
Pharaoh on the part of the God of the Israelites, that he would
let His people go into the wilderness and sacrifice to Him, ap-
pears so natural and reasonable, that Pharaoh could not have
refused their request, if there had been a single trace of the
fear of God in his heart. But what was his answTer ? " Who is
Jehovah, that I should listen to His voice, to let Israel go? I know
not Jehovah" There was a certain truth in these last words.
The God of Israel had not yet made Himself known to him.
But this was no justification. Although as a heathen he might
naturally measure the power of the God by the existing condi-
tion of His people, and infer from the impotence of the Israel-
ites that their God must be also weak, he would not have dared
to refuse the petition of the Israelites, to be allowed to sacrifice
to their God or celebrate a sacrificial festival, if he had had any
faith in gods at all. — Ver. 3. The messengers founded their re-
quest upon the fact that the God of the Hebrews had met them
(SOi?3, vid. chap. iii. 18), and referred to the punishment which
the neglect of the sacrificial festival demanded by God might
bring upon the nation. UJJ3B)-}fi : " lest He strike us (attack us)
with pestilence or sword." WR : to strike, hit against any one, either
by accident or with a hostile intent ; ordinarily construed with 3,
also with an accusative, 1 Sam. x. 5, and chosen here probably
with reference to N"Ji?J = rrnpJ. "Pestilence or sword:" these are
mentioned as expressive of a violent death, and as the means
employed by the deities, according to the ordinary belief of the
nations, to punish the neglect of their worship. The expression
"God of the Hebrews," for "God of Israel" (ver. 1), is not
chosen as being "more intelligible to the king, because the
Israelites were called Hebrews by foreigners, more especially
by the Egyptians (i. 16, ii. 6)," as Knohel supposes, but to con-
vince Pharaoh of the necessity for their going into the desert
to keep the festival demanded by their God. In Egypt they
might sacrifice to the gods of Egypt, but not to the God of the
464 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
Hebrews. — Vers. 4, 5. But Pharaoh would hear nothing of any
worship. He believed that the wish was simply an excuse for
procuring holidays for the people, or days of rest from their
labours, and ordered the messengers off to their slave duties :
" Get you unto your burdens." For as the people were very
numerous, he would necessarily lose by their keeping holiday.
He called the Israelites " the people of the land" not " as being
his own property, because he was the lord of the land" (Baum-
garten), but as the working class, "land-people," equivalent to
" common people," in distinction from the ruling castes of the
Egyptians (vid. Jer. lii. 25 ; Ezek. vii. 27).
Vers. 6-18. As Pharaoh possessed neither fear of God
(evo-e/3eia) nor fear of the gods, but, in the proud security of his
might, determined to keep the Israelites as slaves, and to use
them as tools for the glorifying of his kingdom by the erection
of magnificent buildings, he suspected that their wish to go into
the desert was nothing but an excuse invented by idlers, and
prompted by a thirst for freedom, which might become danger-
ous to his kingdom, on account of the numerical strength of the
people. He therefore thought that he could best extinguish
such desires and attempts by increasing the oppression and add-
ing to their labours. For this reason he instructed his bailiffs to
abstain from delivering straw to the Israelites who were engaged
in making bricks, and to let them gather it for themselves ; but
yet not to make the least abatement in the number (rubno) to
be delivered every day. DJ?3 DT^n, " those who urged the people
on" were the bailiffs selected from the Egyptians and placed
over the Israelitish workmen, the general managers of the work.
Under them there were the D'Htpb* (Jit. writers, ypafAfiarelsLXX.,
from "itpt^ to write), who were chosen from the Israelites (vid.
ver. 14), and had to distribute the work among the people, and
hand it over, when finished, to the royal officers. B13J? Pr : to
make bricks, not to burn them; for the bricks in the ancient
monuments of Egypt, and in many of the pyramids, are not
burnt but dried in the sun (Herod, ii. 136 ; Ilengst. Egypt and
Books of Moses, pp. 2 and 79 sqq.). E>K'p: a denom. verb from
P'P, to gather stubble, then to stubble, to gather (Num. xv. 32,
33). pPi, of uncertain etymology, is chopped straw ; here, the
stubble that was left standing when the corn was reaped, or the
straw that lay upon the ground. This they chopped up and
CHAP. V. 19-23. 465
mixed with the clay, to give greater durability to the bricks, as
may be seen in bricks found in the oldest monuments (cf. Hgst.
p. 79). — Ver. 9. "Let the work he heavy (press heavily) upon the
people, and they shall make with it (i.e. stick to their work), and
not look at lying ivords." By " lying words" the king meant the
words of Moses, that the God of Israel had appeared to him,
and demanded a sacrificial festival from His people. In ver.
11 special emphasis is laid upon DfiX "ye:" " Go, ye yourselves,
fetch your straw" not others for you as heretofore ; " for nothing
is taken (diminished) from your ivork." The word ^ for has
been correctly explained by Kimchi as supposing a parenthetical
thought, et quidem alacriter vobis eandum est. — Ver. 12. "p Wpp:
"to gather stubble for straw;" not " stubble for, in the sense of
instead of straw," for ? is not equivalent to T\nr\} but to gather
the stubble left in the fields for the chopped straw required for
the bricks. — Ver. 13. tova Di1 "D'n, the quantity fixed for every
day, "just as when the straw was (there)," i.e. was given out for
the work. — Vers. 14 sqq. As the Israelites could not do the work
appointed them, their overlookers were beaten by the Egyptian
bailiffs ; and when they complained to the king of this treat-
ment, they were repulsed with harshness, and told " Ye are idle,
idle; therefore ye say, Let us go and sacrifice to Jehovah? riNBrn
•qrsy : « and thy people sin;" i.e. not " thy people (the Israelites)
must be sinners," which might be the meaning of NDn accord-
ing to Gen. xliii. 9, but " thy (Egyptian) people sin." " Thy
people" must be understood as applying to the Egyptians, on
account of the antithesis to " thy servants," which not only re-
fers to the Israelitish overlookers, but includes all the Israelites,
especially in the first clause. riNttn is an unusual feminine form,
for nxtpn (vid. Gen. xxxiii. 11); and DV is construed as a femi-
nine, as in Judg. xviii. 7 and Jer. viii. 5.
Vers. 19—23. When the Israelitish overlookers saw that they
were in evil (JH3 as in Ps. x. 6, i.e. in an evil condition), they
came to meet Moses and Aaron, waiting for them as they came
out from the king, and reproaching them with only making the
circumstances of the people worse. — Ver. 21. " Jehovah look
upon you and judge" {i.e. punish you, because) " ye have made
the smell of us to stink in the eyes of Pharaoh and his servants"
i.e. destroyed our good name with the king and his servants,
and turned it into hatred and disgust, rrn, a pleasant smell,
4G6 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
is a figure employed for a good name or repute, and the figu-
rative use of the word explains the connection with the eyes
instead of the nose. " To give a sword into their hand to kill
us." Moses and Aaron, they imagined, through their appeal to
Pharaoh had made the king and his counsellers suspect them of
being restless people, and so had put a weapon into their hands
for their oppression and destruction. What perversity of the
natural heart ! They call upon God to judge, whilst by their
very complaining they show that they have no confidence in God
and His power to save. Moses turned (3B^1 ver. 22) to Jehovah
with the question, " Why hast Thou done evil to this peojyle,"
— increased tbsB" oppression by my mission to Pharaoh, and yet
not delivered them ? " These are not words of contumacy or
indignation, but of inquiry and prayer" (Aug. quasi. 14). The
question and complaint proceeded from faith, which flies to God
when it cannot understand the dealings of God, to point out to
Him how incomprehensible are His ways, to appeal to Him to
help in the time of need, and to remove what seems opposed to
His nature and His will.
Chap, vi.-vii. 7. Equipment of Moses and Aaron as
messengers OF Jehovah. — Ver. 1. In reply to the complain-
ing inquiry of Moses, Jehovah promised him the deliverance of
Israel by a strong hand (cf. iii. 19), by which Pharaoh would be
compelled to let Israel go, and even to drive them out of his
land. Moses did not receive any direct answer to the question,
" Why hast Thou so evil-entreated this people ? " He was to
gather this first of all from his own experience as the leader of
Israel. For the words were strictly applicable here : " What I
do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter" (John
xiii. 7). If, even after the miraculous deliverance of the Israel-
ites from Egypt and their glorious march through the desert, in
which they had received so many proofs of the omnipotence
and mercy of their God, they repeatedly rebelled against the
guidance of God, and were not content with the manna pro-
vided by the Lord, but lusted after the fishes, leeks, and onions
of Egypt (Num. xi.) ; it is certain that in such a state of mind as
this, they would never have been willing to leave Egypt and
enter into a covenant with Jehovah, without a very great in-
crease in the oppression they endured in Egypt. — The brief but
CHAP. VI. 1-8. 467
comprehensive promise was still further explained by the Lord
(vers. 2-9), and Moses was instructed and authorized to carry out
the divine purposes in concert with Aaron (vers. 10-13, 28-30,
chap. vii. 1-6). The genealogy of the two messengers is then in-
troduced into the midst of these instructions (vi. 14-27) ; and the
age of Moses is given at the close (vii. 7). This section does not
contain a different account of the calling of Moses, taken from
some other source than the previous one ; it rather presupposes
chap, iii.-v., and completes the account commenced in chap. iii.
of the equipment of Moses and Aaron as the executors of the
divine will with regard to Pharaoh and Israel. For the fact
that the first visit paid by Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh was
simply intended to bring out the attitude of Pharaoh towards
the purposes of Jehovah, and to show the necessity for the great
judgments of God, is distinctly expressed in the words, " Now
shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh." But before these
judgments commenced, Jehovah announced to Moses (ver. 2),
and through him to the people, that henceforth He would mani-
fest Himself to them in a much more glorious manner than to
the patriarchs, namely, as Jehovah; whereas to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, He had only appeared as El Shaddai. The
words, " By My name Jehovah was I not known to them," do
not mean, however, that the patriarchs were altogether ignorant
of the name Jehovah. This is obvious from the significant use
of that name, wdiich was not an unmeaning sound, but a real
expression of the divine nature, and still more from the unmis-
takeable connection between the explanation given by God here
and Gen. xvii. 1. When the establishment of the covenant
commenced, as described in Gen. xv., with the institution of the
covenant sign of circumcision and the promise of the birth of
Isaac, Jehovah said to Abram, " I am El Shaddai, God Al-
mighty," and from that time forward manifested Himself to
Abram and his wife as the Almighty, in the birth of Isaac, which
took place apart altogether from the powers of nature, and also
in the preservation, guidance, and multiplication of his seed.
It was in His attribute as El Shaddai that God had revealed His
nature to the patriarchs ; but now He was about to reveal Him-
self to Israel as Jehovah, as the absolute Being working with
unbounded freedom in the performance of His promises. For
not only had He established His covenant with the fathers
468 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
(ver. 4), but He had also heard the groaning of the children of
Israel, and remembered His covenant (ver. 5 ; 231 — 231, not only
— but also). The divine promise not only commences in ver. 2,
but concludes at ver. 8, with the emphatic expression, " /
Jehovah," to show that the work of Israel's redemption resided
in the power of the name Jehovah. In ver. 4 the covenant pro-
mises of Gen. xvii. 7, 8, xxvi. 3, xxxv. 11, 12, are all brought
together ; and in ver. 5 we have a repetition of chap. ii. 24, with
the emphatically repeated *JN (/). On the ground of the erec-
tion of His covenant on the one hand, and, what was irrecon-
cilable with that covenant, the bondage of Israel on the other,
Jehovah was now about to redeem Israel from its sufferings and
make it His own nation. This assurance, which God would carry
out by the manifestation of His nature as expressed in the name
Jehovah, contained three distinct elements : (a) the deliverance
of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, which, because so utterly
different from all outward appearances, is described in three
parallel clauses : bringing them out from under the burdens of
the Egyptians ; saving them from their bondage ; and redeeming
them with a stretched-out arm and with great judgments ; —
(b) the adoption of Israel as the nation of God ; — (c) the guid-
ance of Israel into the land promised to the fathers (vers. 6—8).
rPttoa yhT, a stretched-out arm, is most appropriately connected
with 2v"l3 E^SK'j great judgments ; for God raises, stretches out
His arm, when He proceeds in judgment to smite the rebellious.
These expressions repeat with greater emphasis the " strong
hand" of ver. 1, and are frequently connected with it in the
rhetorical language of Deuteronomy (e.g. chap. iv. 34, v. 15, vii.
19). The " great judgments " were the plagues, the judgments
of God, by which Pharaoh was to be compelled to let Israel go.
— Ver. 7. The adoption of Israel as the nation of God took place
at Sinai (xix. 5). '131 *FI$M Tv.'^> " with regard to which I have
lifted up My hand to give it" (ver. 8). Lifting up the hand (sc.
towards heaven) is the attitude of swearing (Deut. xxxii. 40
cf. Gen. xiv. 22) ; and these words point back to Gen. xxii. 16
sqq. and xxvi. 3 (cf. chap. xxiv. 7 and 1. 24).
Vers. 9-13. When Moses communicated this solemn assur-
ance of God to the people, they did not listen to him nil ")$>©, lit.
"for shortness of breath ;" not " from impatience" (like nVT"Mfj^
Prov. xiv. 29, in contrast to t^BS T^), but from anguish, inward
CHAP. VI. 14-27. 4G9
pressure, which prevents a man from breathing properly. Thus
the early belief of the Israelites was changed into the despond-
ency of unbelief through the increase of their oppression. This
result also produced despondency in Moses' mind, so that he
once more declined the commission, which followed the promise,
viz. to go to Pharaoh and demand that he would let Israel go
out of his land (ver. 11). If the children of Israel would not
listen to him, how should Pharaoh hear him, especially as he
was uncircumcised in the lips (ver. 12) ? ^rjBty 7]j? is one whose
lips are, as it were, covered with a foreskin, so that he cannot
easily bring out his words ; in meaning the same as " heavy of
mouth" in chap. iv. 10. The reply of God to this objection is
given in chap. vii. 1-5. For, before the historian gives the de-
cisive answer of Jehovah which removed all further hesitation
on the part of Moses, and completed his mission and that of
Aaron to Pharaoh, he considers it advisable to introduce the
genealogy of the two men of God, for the purpose of showing
clearly their genealogical relation to the people of Israel. — Ver.
13 forms a concluding summary, and prepares the way for the
genealogy that follows, the heading of which is given in ver. 14.1
Vers. 14-27. The genealogy of Moses and Aaeon. —
" These are their (Moses' and Aaron's) fathers-houses." "JV2
DUX father' s-houses (not fathers' house) is a composite noun, so.
formed that the two words not only denote one idea, but are
treated grammatically as one word, like D^jriva idol-houses
(1 Sam. xxxi. 9), and ntoa'JT'a high-place-houses (cf. Ges. § 108,
3 ; Ewald, § 270c). Father' s-house was a technical term applied
to a collection of families, called by the name of a common an-
cestor. The father' s-houses were the larger divisions into which
the families (mishpachoth), the largest subdivisions of the tribes
of Israel, were grouped. To show clearly the genealogical posi-
tion of Levi, the tribe-father of Moses and Aaron, among the
sons of Jacob, the genealogy commences with Reuben, the first-
born of Jacob, and gives the names of such of his sons and those
of Simeon as were the founders of families (Gen. xlvi. 9, 10).
1 The organic connection of this genealogy -with the entire narrative
has been so conclusively demonstrated by Ranke, in his Unterss. ub. d. Pent.
i. p. 68 sqq. and ii. 19 sqq., that even Knobel has admitted it, and thrown
away the fragmentary hypothesis.
470 TOE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
Then follows Levi ; and not only are the names of his three
sons given, but the length of his life is mentioned (ver. 16), also
that of his son Kohath and his descendant Amram, because they
were the tribe-fathers of Moses and Aaron. But the Amram
mentioned in ver. 20 as the father of Moses, cannot be the same
person as the Amram who was the son of Kohath (ver. 18), but
must be a later descendant. For, however the sameness of names
may seem to favour the identity of the persons, if we simply look
at the genealogy before us, a comparison of this passage with
Num. iii. 27, 28 will show the impossibility of such an assump-
tion. "According to Num. iii. 27, 28, the Kohathites were
divided (in Moses' time) into the four branches, Amramites,
Izharites, Hebronites, and Uzzielites, who consisted together of
8600 men and boys (women and girls not being included). Of
these, about a fourth, or 2150 men, would belong to the Am-
ramites. Now, according to Ex. xviii. 3, 4, Moses himself had
only two sons. Consequently, if Amram the son of Kohath,
and tribe-father of the Amramites, was the same person as
Amram the father of Moses, Moses must have had 2147 brothers
and brothers' sons (the brothers' daughters, the sisters, and their
daughters, not being reckoned at all). But as this is absolutely
impossible, it must be granted that Amram the son of Kohath
was not the father of Moses, and that an indefinitely long list of
generations has been omitted between the former and his de-
scendant of the same name" (Tiele, Chron. des A. T. p. 36).1
The enumeration of only four generations, viz. Levi, Kohath,
Amram, Moses, is unmistakeably related to Gen. xv. 16, where
it is stated that the fourth generation would return to Canaan.
Amram's wife Jochebed, who is merely spoken of in general
terms as a daughter of Levi (a Levitess) in chap. ii. 1 and
Num. xxvi. 59, is called here the nnn "aunt" (father's sister)
of Amram, a marriage which was prohibited in the Mosaic law
(Lev. xviii. 12), but was allowed before the giving of the law;
1 The objections of M. Baumgarten to these correct remarks have been
conclusively met by Kurtz (Hist, of 0. 0. vol. ii. p. 144). We find a
Bimilar case in tin- genealogy of Ezra in Ezra vii. 3, which passes over from
Azariah I lie son of Meraioth to Azariah the son of Johanan, and omits five
links between the two, as we may see from 1 Chron vi. 7-11. In the same
way lln' genealogy before us skips over from Amram the son of Kohath to
Amram the father of Moses without mentioning the generations between.
CHAP. VI. 28- VII. 7. 471
so that there is no reason for following the LXX. and Vulgate,
and rendering the word, in direct opposition to the usage of the
language, patruelis, the father's brother's daughter. Amram's
sons are placed according to their age : Aaron, then Moses, as
Aaron was three years older than his brother. Their sister
Miriam was older still (yid. ii. 4). In the iXX, Vulg., and
one Hebrew MS., she is mentioned here ; but this is a later in-
terpolation. In vers. 21 sqq. not only are the sons of Aaron
mentioned (ver. 23), but those of two of Amram's brothers,
Izhar and Uzziel (vers. 21, 22), and also Phinehas, the son of
Aaron's son Eleazar (ver. 25) ; as the genealogy was intended to
trace the descent of the principal priestly families, among which
again special prominence is given to Aaron and Eleazar by the
introduction of their wives. On the other hand, none of the
sons of Moses are mentioned, because his dignity was limited to
his own person, and his descendants fell behind those of Aaron,
and were simply reckoned among the non-priestly families of
Levi. The Korahites and Uzzielites are mentioned, but a supe-
rior rank was assigned to them in the subsequent history to
that of other Levitical families (cf. Num. xvi., xvii., xxvi. 11,
and hi. 30 with Lev. x. 4). Aaron's wife Elisheba was of -the
princely tribe of Judah, and her brother Naashon was a tribe-
prince of Judah (cf. Num. ii. 3). rri3K ''B'iO (ver. 25), a frequent
abbreviation for nuSTTO ^SO, heads of the father' s-houses of
the Levites. In vers. 26 and 27, with which the genealogy
closes, the object of introducing it is very clearly shown in the
expression, " These are that Aaron and Moses" at the beginning
of ver. 26 ; and again, " These are that Moses and Aaron" at
the close of ver. 27. The reversal of the order of the names is
also to be noticed. In the genealogy itself Aaron stands first,
as the elder of the two ; in the conclusion, which leads over to
the historical narrative that follows, Moses takes precedence of
his elder brother, as being the divinely appointed redeemer of
Israel. On the expression, "according to their armies," see
chap. vii. 4.
Ver. 28-vii. 7. In vers. 28-30 the thread of the history,
which was broken off at ver. 12, is again resumed, *i|n D^3, on
the day, i.e. at the time, when God spake. UV is the construct
state before an entire clause, which is governed by it without a
relative particle, as in Lev. vii. 35, 1 Sam. xxv. 15 (yid. Ewald,
472 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
§ 286t). Moses' last difficulty (vi. 12, repeated in ver. 30) was
removed by God with the words : " See, 1 have made thee a god
to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet" (chap,
vii. 1). According to chap. iv. 1G, Moses was to be a god to
Aaron ; and in harmony with that, Aaron is here called the pro-
phet of Moses, as being the person who would announce to Pha-
raoh the revelations of Moses. At the same time Moses was
also made a god to Pharaoh; i.e. he was promised divine autho-
rity and power over Pharaoh, so that henceforth there was no
more necessity for him to be afraid of the king of Egypt, but
the latter, notwithstanding all resistance, would eventually bow
before him. Moses was a god to Aaron as the revealer of the
divine will, and to Pharaoh as the executor of that will. — In
vers. 2-5 God repeats in a still more emphatic form His assur-
ance, that notwithstanding the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, He
would bring His people Israel out of Egypt, fwl (ver. 2) does
not mean ut dimittat or mittat (Vulg. Ros.; " that he send," Eng.
ver.) ; but 1 is vav consec. per/., " and so he will send." On ver.
3 cf. chap. iv. 21.— Ver. 4. Wig WW : " I will lay My hand on
Egypt," i.e. smite Egypt, " and bring out My armies, My people,
the children of Israel." riiX3>* (armies) is used of Israel, with
reference to its leaving Egypt equipped (chap. xiii. 18) and
organized as an army according to the tribes (cf. vi. 2G and xii.
51 with Num. i. and ii.), to contend for the cause of the Lord,
and fight the battles of Jehovah. In this respect the Israelites
were called the hosts of Jehovah. The calling of Moses and
Aaron was now concluded. Vers. G and 7 pave the way for the
account of their performance of the duties consequent upon
their call.
MOSES' NEGOTIATIONS WITH PHARAOH. — CHAP. VII. 8-XI. 10.
The negotiations of Moses and Aaron as messengers of
Jehovah with the king of Egypt, concerning the departure of
Israel from his land, commenced with a sign, by which the mes-
sengers of God attested their divine mission in the presence of
Pharaoh (chap. vii. 8-13), and concluded with the announcement
of the last blow that God would inflict upon the hardened king
(chap. xi. 1-10). The centre of these negotiations, or rather
the main point of this lengthened section, which is closely con-
CHAP. VII. 8-XI. 10. 473
nected throughout, and formally rounded off by chap. xi. 9, 10
into an inward unity, is found in the nine plagues which the mes-
sengers of Jehovah brought upon Pharaoh and his kingdom at
the command of Jehovah, to bend the defiant spirit of the king,
and induce him to let Israel go out of the land and serve their
God. If we carefully examine the account of these nine penal;
miracles, we shall find that they are arranged in three groups:
of three plagues each. For the first and second, the fourth
and fifth, and the seventh and eighth were announced before-
hand by Moses to the king (vii. 15, viii. 1, 20, ix. 1, 13, x. 1),
whilst the third, sixth, and ninth were sent without any such
announcement (viii. 16, ix. 8, x. 21). Again, the first, fourth,
and seventh were announced to Pharaoh in the morning, and
the first and fourth by the side of the Nile (vii. 15, viii. 20),
both of them being connected with the overflowing of the
river; whilst the place of announcement is not mentioned in the
case of the seventh (the hail, chap. ix. 13), because hail, as com-
ing from heaven, was not connected with any particular localit}'.
This grouping is not a merely external arrangement, adopted by
the writer for the sake of greater distinctness, but is founded in
the facts themselves, and the effect which God intended the
plagues to produce, as we may gather from these circumstances —
that the Egyptian magicians, who had imitated the first plagues,
were put to shame with their arts by the third, and were com-
pelled to see in it the finger of God (viii. 19), — that they were
smitten themselves by the sixth, and were unable to stand before
Moses (ix. 11), — and that after the ninth, Pharaoh broke off
all further negotiation with Moses and Aaron (x. 28, 29). The
last plague, commonly known as the tenth, which Moses also
announced to the king before his departure (xi. 4 sqq.), differed
from the nine former ones both in purpose and form. It was the
first beginning of the judgment that was coming upon the hard-
ened king, and was inflicted directly by God Himself, for Jehovah
"went out through the midst of Egypt, and smote the first-born of
the Egyptians both of man and beast" (xi. 4, xii. 29) ; whereas
seven of the previous plagues were brought by Moses and Aaron,
and of the two that are not expressly said to have been brought
by them, one, that of the dog-flies, was simply sent by Jeho-
vah (viii. 21, 24), and the other, the murrain of beasts, simply
came from His hand (is. 3, 6). The last blow (W3 xi. 1), which
PENT. — VOL. I. 2 H
471 the second book of Hoses.
brought about the release of Israel, was also distinguished from
the nine plagues, as the direct judgment of God, by the fact that
it was not effected through the medium of any natural occur-
rence, as was the case with all the others, which were based upon
the natural phenomena of Egypt, and became signs and wonders
through their vast excess above the natural measure of such
natural occurrences and their supernatural accumulation, blow-
after blow following one another in less than a year, and also
through the peculiar circumstances under which they were
brought about. In this respect also the triple division is unmis-
takeable. The first three plagues covered the whole land, and
fell upon the Israelites as well as the Egyptians; with the fourth
the separation commenced between Egyptians and Israelites, so
that only the Egyptians suffered from the last six, the Israelites
in Goshen being entirely exempted. The last three, again, were
distinguished from the others by the fact, that they were far more
dreadful than any of the previous ones, and bore visible marks
of being the forerunners of the judgment which would inevit-
ably fall upon Pharaoh, if he continued his opposition to the will
of the Almighty God.
In this graduated series of plagues, the judgment of harden-
ing was inflicted upon Pharaoh in the manner explained above.
In the first three plagues God showed him, that He, the God of
Israel, was Jehovah (vii. 17), i.e. that He ruled as Lord and
King over the occurrences and powers of nature, which the
Egyptians for the most part honoured as divine ; and before
His power the magicians of Egypt with their secret arts were
put to shame. These three wonders made no impression upon
the king. The plague of frogs, indeed, became so troublesome
to him, that he begged Moses and Aaron to intercede with their
God to deliver him from them, and promised to let the people
go (viii. 8). But as soon as they were taken away, he hardened
his heart, and would not listen to the messengers of God. Of
the three following plagues, the first (i.e. the fourth in the entire
series), viz. the plague of swarming creatures or dog-flies, with
which the distinction between the Egyptians and Israelites com-
menced, proving to Pharaoh that the God of Israel was Jehovah
in the midst of the land (viii. 22), made such an impression
upon the hardened king, that he promised to allow the Israelites
to sacrifice to their God, first of all in the land, and when Moses
CHAP. VII. 8-13. 475
refused this condition, even outside the land, if they would not
go far away, and Moses and Aaron would pray to God for him,
that this plague might be taken away by God from him and
from his people (viii. 25 sqq.). But this concession was only
forced out of him by suffering ; so that as soon as the plague
ceased he withdrew it again, and his hard heart was not changed
by the two following plagues. Hence still heavier plagues were
sent, and he had to learn from the last three that there was no
god in the whole earth like Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews
(ix. 14). The terrible character of these last plagues so affected
the proud heart of Pharaoh, that twice he acknowledged he had
sinned (ix. 27, x. 16), and gave a promise that he would let the
Israelites go, restricting his promise first of all to the men, and
then including their families also (x. 11, 24). But when this
plague was withdrawn, he resumed his old sinful defiance once
more (ix. 34, 35, x. 20), and finally was altogether hardened,
and so enraged at Moses persisting in his demand that they
should take their flocks as well, that he drove away the messen-
gers of Jehovah and broke off all further negotiations, with the
threat that he would kill them if ever they came into his pre-
sence again (x. 28, 29).
Chap. vii. 8-13. Attestation of the divine mission
of Moses and Aaron. — By Jehovah's directions Moses and
Aaron went to Pharaoh, and proved by a miracle (^Sio chap. iv.
21) that they were the messengers of the God of the Hebrews.
Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh, and it became a ser-
pent. Aaron's staff was no other than the wondrous staff of
Moses (chap. iv. 2-4). This is perfectly obvious from a compa-
rison of vers. 15 and 17 with vers. 19 and 20. If Moses was
directed, according to vers. 15 sqq., to go before Pharaoh with
his rod which had been turned into a serpent, and to announce
to him that he would smite the water of the Nile with the staff
in his hand and turn it into blood, and then, according to vers.
19 sqq., this miracle was carried out by Aaron taking his staff
and stretching out his hand over the waters of Egypt, the staff
which Aaron held over the water cannot have been any other
than the staff of Moses which had been turned into a serpent.
Consequently we must also understand by the staff of Aaron,
which was thrown down before Pharaoh and became a serpent,
476 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
the same wondrous staff of Moses, and attribute the expression
" thy (i.e. Aaron's) staff" to the brevity of the account, i.e. to
the fact that the writer restricted himself to the leading facts,
and passed over such subordinate incidents as that Moses gave
his staff to Aaron for him to work the miracle. For the same
reason he has not even mentioned that Moses spoke to Pharaoh
by Aaron, or what he said, although in ver. 13 he states that
Pharaoh did not hearken unto them, i.e. to their message or
their words. The serpent, into which the staff was changed,
is not called £>rn here, as in ver. 15 and chap. iv. 3, but P|Fl
(LXX. SpaKcov, dragon), a general term for snake-like animals.
This difference does not show that there were two distinct records,
but may be explained on the ground that the miracle performed
before Pharaoh had a different signification from that which
attested the divine mission of Moses in the presence of his people.
The miraculous sign mentioned here is distinctly related to the
art of snake-charming, which was carried to such an extent by
the Psylli in ancient Egypt (cf. Bochart, and Hengstenbevg,
Egypt and Moses, pp. 98 sqq. transl.). It is probable that the
Israelites in Egypt gave the name P^ri (Eng. ver. dragon), which
occurs in Deut. xxxii. 33 and Ps. xci. 13 as a parallel to JH3
(Eng. ver. asp), to the snake with which the Egyptian charmers
generally performed their tricks, the Hayeh of the Arabs. What
the magi and conjurers of Egypt boasted that they could perform
by their secret or magical arts, Moses was to effect in reality in
Pharaoh's presence, and thus manifest himself to the king as
Eloldm (ver. 1), i.e. as endowed with divine authority and power.
All that is related of the Psylli of modern times is, that they
understand the art of turning snakes into sticks, or of compelling
them to become rigid and apparently dead (for examples see
Ilengstenberg) ; but who can tell what the ancient Psylli may
have been able to effect, or may have pretended to effect, at a
time when the demoniacal power of heathenism existed in its
unbroken force? The magicians summoned by Pharaoh also
turned their sticks into snakes (ver. 12) ; a fact which naturally
excites the suspicion that the sticks themselves were only rigid
snakes, though, with our very limited acquaintance with the dark
domain of heathen conjuring, the possibility of their working
" lying wonders after the working of Satan," i.e. supernatural
things (2 Thess. ii. 9), cannot be absolutely denied. The words,
CHAP. VII. 14-VIII 15 (19). 477
" They also, the chartummim of Egypt, did in like manner with
their enchantments," are undoubtedly based upon the assump-
tion, that the conjurers of Egypt not only pretended to possess
the art of turning snakes into sticks, but of turning sticks into
snakes as well, so that in the persons of the conjurers Pharaoh
summoned the might of the gods of Egypt to oppose the might
of Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews. For these magicians,
whom the Apostle Paul calls Jannes and Jambres, according to
#the Jewish tradition (2 Tim. iii. 8), were not common jugglers,
but E^n " wise men," men educated in human and divine wis-
dom, and D^pnrij lepoypa^fxareU, belonging to the priestly caste
(Gen. xli. 8) ; so that the power of their gods was manifested in
their secret arts (E^rp from EH? to conceal, to act secretly, like D w
in ver. 22 from vb), and in the defeat of their enchantments
by Moses the gods of Egypt were overcome by Jehovah (chap,
xii. 12). The supremacy of Jehovah over the demoniacal powers
of Egypt manifested itself in the very first miraculous sign, in
the fact that Aaron's staff swallowed those of the magicians ;
though this miracle made no impression upon Pharaoh (ver. 13).
THE FIRST THREE PLAGUES. — CHAP. VII. 14-VIII. 15 (19).
When Pharaoh hardened his heart against the first sign, not-
withstanding the fact that it displayed the supremacy of the
messengers of Jehovah over the might of the Egyptian conjurers
and their gods, and refused to let the people of Israel go ; Moses
and Aaron were empowered by God to force the release of Israel
from the obdurate king by a series of penal miracles. These
D'TiBb were not purely supernatural wonders, or altogether un-
known to the Egyptians, but were land-plagues with which
Egypt was occasionally visited, and were raised into miraculous
deeds of the Almighty God, by the fact that they burst upon
the land one after another at an unusual time of the year, in
unwonted force, and in close succession. These plagues were
selected by God as miraculous signs, because He intended to
prove thereby to the king and his servants, that He, Jehovah,
was the Lord in the land, and ruled over the powers of nature
with unrestricted freedom and omnipotence. For this reason
God not only caused them to burst suddenly upon the land
according to His word, and then as suddenly to disappear accord-
478 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
ing to His omnipotent will, but caused them to be produced by
Moses arid Aaron and disappear again at their word and prayer,
that Pharaoh might learn that these men were appointed by Him
as His messengers, and were endowed by Him with divine power
for the accomplishment of His will.
Chap. vii. 14-25. — The water of the Nile turned
into blood. — In the morning, when Pharaoh went to the Nile,
Moses took his staff at the command of God ; went up to him on^
the bank of the river, with the demand of Jehovah that he would
let His people Israel go ; and because hitherto (n3""lj?) he had not
obeyed, announced this first plague, which Aaron immediately
brought to pass. Both time and place are of significance here.
iPharaoh went out in the morning to the Nile (ver. 15, chap.
1 j viii. 20), not merely to take a refreshing walk, or to bathe in the
"river, or to see how high the water had risen, but without doubt
! to present his daily worship to the Nile, which was honoured by
the Egyptians as their supreme deity (yid. chap. ii. 5). At this
very moment the will of God with regard to Israel was declared
to him ; and for his refusal to comply with the will of the Lord
as thus revealed to him, the smiting of the Nile with the staff
made known to him the fact, that the God of the Hebrews was
the true God, and possessed the power to turn the fertilizing
water of this object of their highest worship into blood. CThe
changing of the water into blood is to be interpreted in the same
sense as in Joel iii. 4, where the moon is said to be turned into
blood ; that is to say, not as a chemical change into real blood,
but as a change in the colour, which caused it to assume the
appearance of blood)(2 Kings iii. 22). According to the state-
ments of many travellers, the Nile water changes its colour when
the water is lowest, assumes first of all a greenish hue and is
almost undrinkable, and then, while it is rising, becomes as red
as ochre, when it is more wholesome again. The causes of this
change have not been sufficiently investigated. The reddening
of the water is attributed by many to the red earth, which the
river brings down from Sennaar (cf. Hengstenbcrg, Egypt and the
Books of Moses, pp. 104 sqq. transl. ; Laborde, comment, p. 28) ;
but Ehrenberg came to the conclusion, after microscopical exami-
nations, that it was caused by crvptogamic plants and infusoria.
This natural phenomenon was here intensified into a miracle, not
CHAP. VII. 14-25. 479
only by the fact that the change took place immediately in all the
branches of the river at Moses' word and through the smiting
of the Nile, but even more by a chemical change in the water,
which caused the fishes to die, the stream to stink, and, what
seems to indicate putrefaction, the water to become undrinkable ;
whereas, according to the accounts of travellers, which certainly
do not quite agree with one another, and are not entirely trust-
worthy, the Nile watei becomes more drinkable as soon as the
natural reddening begins. The change in the water extended to
" the streams" or different arms of the Nile ; " the rivers" or
Nile canals ; " the ponds" or large standing lakes formed by the
Nile ; and all " the pools of water" lit. every collection of their
waters, i.e. all the other standing lakes and ponds, left by the
overflowings of the Nile, with the water of which those who lived
at a distance from the river had to content themselves. " So
that there was blood in all the land of Egypt, both in the icood
and in the stone ;" i.e. in the vessels of wood and stone, in
which the water taken from the Nile and its branches was kept
for daily use. The reference is not merely to the earthen vessels
used for filtering and cleansing the water, but to every vessel
into which water had been put. The " stone " vessels were the
stone reservoirs built up at the corners of the streets and in
other places, where fresh water was kept for the poor (cf. Oed-
manrfs verm. Samml. p. 133). The meaning of this supple-
mentary clause is not that even the water which was in these
vessels previous to the smiting of the river was turned into
blood, in which Kurtz perceives " the most miraculous part of the
whole miracle ;" for in that case the " wood and stone " would
have been mentioned immediately after the "gatherings of the
waters ;" but simply that there was no more water to put into
these vessels that was not changed into blood. The death of the
fishes was a sign, that the smiting had taken away from the river
its life-sustaining power, and that its red hue was intended to
depict before the eyes of the Egyptians all the terrors of death ;
but we are not to suppose that there was any reference to the
innocent blood which the Egyptians had poured into the river
through the drowning of the Hebrew boys, or to their own guilty
blood which was afterwards to be shed. — Ver. 22. This miracle
was also imitated by the magicians. The question, where they
got any water that was still unchanged, is not answered in the
480 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
biblical text. Kurtz is of opinion that they took spring water
for the purpose ; but he has overlooked the fact, that if spring
water was still to be had, there would be no necessity for the
Egyptians to dig wells for the purpose of rinding drinkable water.
The supposition that the magicians did not try their arts till the
miracle wrought by Aaron had passed away, is hardly reconcil-
able with the text, which places the return of Pharaoh to his
house after the work of the magicians. For it can neither be
assumed, that the miracle wrought by the messengers of Jehovah
lasted only a few hours, so that Pharaoh was able to wait by the
Nile till it was over, since in that case the Egyptians would not
have thought it necessary to dig wells ; nor can it be regarded
as probable, that after the miracle was over, and the plague had
ceased, the magicians began to imitate it for the purpose of showing
the king that they could do the same, and that it was after this
that the king went to his house without paying any heed to the
miracle. We must therefore follow the analogy of chap. ix.
25 as compared with chap. x. 5, and not press the expression,
" every collection of water " (ver. 19), so as to infer that there
was no Nile water at all, not even what had been taken away
before the smiting of the river, that was not changed, but rather
conclude that the magicians tried their arts upon water that
was already drawn, for the purpose of neutralizing the effect
of the plague as soon as it had been produced. The fact that
the clause, " Pharaoh's heart was hardened," is linked with
the previous clause, " the magicians did so, etc.," by a vav
consecutive, unquestionably implies that the imitation of the
miracle by the magicians contributed to the hardening of
Pharaoh's heart. The expression, " to this also" in ver. 23,
points back to the first miraculous sign in vers. 10 sqq. This
plague was keenly felt by the Egyptians ; for the Nile contains
the only good drinking water, and its excellence is unanimously
attested by both ancient and modern writers (Henc/sfenberg ut
sup. pp. 108, 109, transl.). As they could not drink of the
water of the river from their loathing at its stench (ver. 18),
they were obliged to dig round about the river for water to drink
(ver. 24). From this it is evident that the plague lasted a con-
siderable time ; according to ver. 25, apparently seven days.
At least this is the most natural interpretation of the words, " and
seven days were fulfilled after that Jehovah had smitten the river."
CHAP. VIII. 1-15. 481
It is true, there is still the possibility that this verse may be con-
nected with the following one, "when seven days were fulfilled . . .
Jehovah said to Moses." But this is not probable ; for the time
which intervened between the plagues is not stated anywhere else,
nor is the expression, " Jehovah said," with which the plagues
are introduced, connected in any other instance with what
precedes. The narrative leaves it quite undecided how rapidly
the plagues succeeded one another. On the supposition that
the changing of the Nile water took place at the time when the
river began to rise, and when the reddening generally occurs,
many expositors fix upon the month of June or July for the
commencement of the plague ; in which case all the plagues
down to.the death of the first-born, which occurred in the night
of the 14th Abib, i.e. about the middle of April, would be con-
fined to the space of about nine months. But this conjecture is
a very uncertain one, and all that is tolerably sure is, that the
seventh plague (the hail) occurred in February (vid. chap. ix.
31,32), and there were (not three weeks, but) eight weeks
therefore, or about two months, between the seventh and tenth
plagues ; so that between each of the last three there would be
an interval of fourteen or twenty days. And if we suppose that
there was a similar interval in the case of all the others, the first
plague would take place in September or October, — that is to
say, after the yearly overflow of the Nile, which lasts from June
to September.
Chap. viii. 1-15. The plague of fkogs, or the second plague,
also proceeded from the Nile, and had its natural origin in the
putridity of the slimy Nile water, whereby the marsh waters
especially became filled with thousands of frogs. ^.1?V is the
small Nile frog, the Do/da of the Egyptians, called rana Mosaica
or Nilotica by Seetzen, which appears in large numbers as soon
as the waters recede. These frogs (jrns&*n in chap. viii. 6, used
collectively) became a penal miracle from the fact that they
came out of the water in unparalleled numbers, in consequence
of the stretching out of Aaron's staff over the waters of the
Nile, as had been foretold to the king, and that they not only
penetrated into the houses and inner rooms ("bed-chamber"),
and crept into the domestic utensils, the beds (/HSD), the ovens,
and the kneading-troughs (not the " dough " as Luther renders
it), but even got upon the men themselves. — Ver. 7. This
482 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
miracle was also imitated by the Egyptian augurs with their
secret arts, and frogs were brought upon the land by them.
But if they were able to bring the plague, they could not take it
away. The latter is not expressly stated, it is true ; but it is evi-
dent from the fact that Pharaoh was obliged to send for Moses
and Aaron to intercede with Jehovah to take them away. The
king would never have applied to Moses and Aaron for help if
his charmers could have charmed the plague away. Moreover
the fact that Pharaoh entreated them to intercede with Jehovah
to take away the frogs, and promised to let the people go, that
they might sacrifice to Jehovah (ver. 8), was a sign that he re-
garded the God of Israel as the author of the plague. To
strengthen the impression made upon the king by this plague
with reference to the might of Jehovah, Moses said to him (ver.
H), " Glorify thyself over me, when I shall entreat for thee" i.e.
take the glory upon thyself of determining the time when I
shall remove the plague through my intercession. The expres-
sion is elliptical, and "ION? (saying) is to be supplied, as in Judg.
vii. 2. To give Jehovah the glory, Moses placed himself below
Pharaoh, and left him to fix the time for the frogs to be removed
through his intercession. — Ver. 10. The king appointed the fol-
lowing day, probably because he hardly thought it possible for
so great a work to be performed at once. Moses promised that
it should be so: " According to thy icord (sc. let it be), that thou
mayest know that there is not (a God) Wee Jehovah our God."
He then went out and cried, i.e. called aloud and earnestly, to
Jehovah concerning the matter ("nn by) of the frogs, which he
had set, i.e. prepared, for Pharaoh (pvy as in Gen. xlv. 7). In
consequence of his intercession God took the plague away. The
frogs died off (JO rfiD, to die away out of, from), out of the houses,
and palaces, and fields, and were gathered together by bushels
(□''"ion from iphj the omer, the largest measure used by the He-
brews), so that the land stank with the odour of their putrefac-
tion. Though Jehovah had thus manifested Himself as the
Almighty God and Lord of the creation, Pharaoh did not keep
his promise; but when he saw that there was breathing-time
(nrT., am^rvft?, relief from an overpowering pressure), lite-
rally, as soon as he "got air" he hardened his heart, so that he
did not hearken to Moses and Aaron ("ISpni inf. abs. as in Gen.
:,li. 43).
CHAP. VIII. 16-19.
483
Chap. viii. 16-19. The gnats, or the third plague.— The MS,
or D»33 (also D33, probably an old singular form, Ewald, § 163/),
were' not " lice" but tr/cvfyes, sciniphes, a species of gnats, so
small as to be hardly visible to the eye, but with a sting which,
according to Philo and Origen, causes a most painful irritation
of the skin. They even creep into the eyes and nose, and after
the harvest they rise in great swarms from the inundated rice-
fields. This plague was caused by the fact that Aaron smote
the dust of the ground with his staff, and all the dust through-
out the land of Egypt turned into gnats, which were upon man
and beast (ver. 17). "Just as the fertilizing water of Egypt
had twice become a plague, so through the power of Jehovah
the soil so richly blessed became a plague to the king and his
people." Ver. 18. "The magicians did so with their enchant-
ments (i.e. smote the dust with rods), to bring forth gnats, but
could not." The cause of this inability is hardly to be sought
for, as Knobel supposes, in the fact that " the thing to be done
in this instance, was to call creatures into existence, and not
merely to call forth and change creatures and things in existence
already, as in the case of the staff, the water, and the frogs."
For after this, they could neither call out the dog-flies, nor pro-
tect their own bodies from the boils ; to say nothing of the fact,
that as gnats proceed from the eggs laid in the dust or earth by
the previous generation, their production is not to be regarded
as a direct act of creation any more than that of the frogs. The
miracle in both plagues was just the same, and consisted not in
a direct creation, but simply in a sudden creative generation and
supernatural multiplication, not of the gnats only, but also of
the frogs, in accordance with a previous prediction. The reason
why the arts of the Egyptian magicians were put to shame in
this case, we have to seek in the omnipotence of God, restraining
the demoniacal powers which the magicians had made subser-
vient to their purposes before, in order that their inability to
bring out these, the smallest of all creatures, which seemed to
arise as it were from the dust itself, might display in the sight
of every one the impotence of their secret arts by the side of the
almighty creative power of the true God. This omnipotence
the magicians were compelled to admit : they were compelled to
acknowledge, " This is the finger of God." " But they did not
make this acknowledgment for the purpose of giving glory to
4S-4 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
God Himself, but simply to protect their own honour, that
Moses and Aaron might not be thought to be superior to them
in virtue or knowledge. It was equivalent to saying, it is not
by Moses and Aaron that we are restrained, but by a divine
power, which is greater than either ■" (Bochart). The word Elo-
him is decisive in support of this view. If they had meant to
refer to the God of Israel, they would have used the name
Jehovah. The " finger of God " denotes creative omnipotence
(Ps. viii. 3; Luke xi. 20, cf. Ex. xxxi. 18). Consequently this
miracle also made no impression upon Pharaoh.
THE THREE FOLLOWING PLAGUES. — CHAP. VIII. 20-IX. 12.
As the Egyptian magicians saw nothing more than the
finger of God in the miracle which they could not imitate,
that is to say, the work of some deity, possibly one of the
gods of the Egyptians, and not the hand of Jehovah the God
of the Hebrews, who had demanded the release of Israel, a dis-
tinction was made in the plagues which followed between the
Israelites and the Egyptians, and the former were exempted
from the plagues : a fact which was sufficient to prove to any
one that they came from the God of Israel. To make this the
more obvious, the fourth and fifth plagues were merely an-
nounced by Moses to the king. They were not brought on
through the mediation of either himself or Aaron, but were sent
by Jehovah at the appointed time ; no doubt for the simple
purpose of precluding the king and his wise men from the ex-
cuse which unbelief might still suggest, viz. that they wrere pro-
duced by the powerful incantations of Moses and Aaron.
Chap. viii. 20-32. The fourth plague, the coming of which
Moses foretold to Pharaoh, like the first, in the morning, and
by the water (on the bank of the Nile), consisted in the sending
of " heavy vermin," probably dog-flies. ^V, literally a mix-
ture, is rendered fcvvoftvia (dog-fly) by the LXX., ird^via
(all-fly), a mixture of all kinds of flies, by Symmaclius. These
insects are described by Philo and many travellers as a very
severe scourge (yid. Ilengstenherg id sup. p. 113). They are
much more numerous and annoying than the gnats ; and when
enraged, they fasten themselves upon the human body, especially
upon the edges of the eyelids, and become a dreadful plague.
CHAP. VIII. 20-32. 485
"133 : a heavy multitude, as in chap. x. 14, Gen. 1. 9, etc. These
swarms were to fill " the houses of the Egyptians, and even the
land upon which they (the Egyptians) xvere" i.e. that part of the
land which was not occupied by houses ; whilst the land of
Goshen, where the Israelites dwelt, would be entirely spared.
i"6an (to separate, to distinguish in a miraculous way) is con-
jugated with an accusative, as in Ps. iv. 4. It is generally fol-
lowed by P3 (chap. ix. 4, xi. 7), to distinguish between. 1EJ? :
to stand upon a land, i.e. to inhabit, possess it ; not to exist, or
live (chap. xxi. 21). — Ver. 23. " And I will put a deliverance
between My people and thy people? nils does not mean Sia-
a-rokrj, divisio (LXX., Vulg.), but redemption, deliverance.
Exemption from this plague was essentially a deliverance for
Israel, which manifested the distinction conferred upon Israel
above the Egyptians. By this plague, in which a" separation
and deliverance was established between the people of God and
the Egyptians, Pharaoh was to be taught that the God who sent
this plague was not some deity of Egypt, but " Jehovah in the
midst of the land" (of Egypt) ; i.e. as Knobel correctly interprets
it, (a) that Israel's God was the author of the plague ; (b) that
He had also authority over Egypt ; and (c) that He possessed
supreme authority : or, to express it still more concisely, that
Israel's God was the Absolute God, who ruled both in and over
Egypt with free and boundless omnipotence. — Vers. 24 sqq. This
plague, by which the land was destroyed (nn$fi), or desolated,
inasmuch as the flies not only tortured, "devoured" (Ps. Ixxviii.
45) the men, and disfigured them by the swellings produced by
their sting, but also killed the plants in which they deposited
their eggs, so alarmed Pharaoh that he sent for Moses and
Aaron, and gave them permission to sacrifice to their God " in
)(jhe land? But Moses could not consent to this restriction. "It
is not appointed so to do" (p33 does not mean aptum, conveniens,
but statutum, rectum), for two reasons : (1) because sacrificing
in the land would be an abomination to the Egyptians, and
would provoke them most bitterly (ver. 26) ; and (2) because
they could only sacrifice to Jehovah their God as He had
directed them (ver. 27). The abomination referred to did not
consist in their sacrificing animals which the Egyptians regarded
as holy. For the word nnyin (abomination) would not be appli-
cable to the sacred animals. Moreover, the cow was the only
486 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
animal offered in sacrifice by the Israelites, which the Egyptian
regarded as sacred. The abomination would rather be this, that
the Israelites would not carry out the rigid regulations observed
by the Egyptians with regard to the cleanness of the sacrificial
animals (vid. Ilengstenberg, p. 114), and in fact would not observe
the sacrificial rites of the Egyptians at all. The Egyptians
would be very likely to look upon this as an insult to their reli-
gion and their gods ; " the violation of the recognised mode of
sacrificing would be regarded as a manifestation of contempt for
themselves and their gods" (Calvin), and this would so enrage
them that they would stone the Israelites. The ][} before nan in
ver. 26 is the interjection lo ! but it stands before a conditional
clause, introduced without a conditional particle, in the sense of
if, which it has retained in the Chaldee, and in which it is used
here and there in the Hebrew (e.g. Lev. xxv. 20). — Vers. 28-32.
These reasons commended themselves to the heathen king from
his own religious standpoint. He promised, therefore, to let the
people go into the wilderness and sacrifice, provided they did not
go far away, if Moses and Aaron would release him and his
people from this plague through their intercession. Moses pro-
mised that the swarms should be removed the following day, but
told the kino; not to deceive them again as he had done before
(ver. 8). But Pharaoh hardened his heart as soon as the plague
was taken away, just as he had done after the second plague
(ver. 15), to which the word "also" refers (ver. 32).
Chap. ix. 1-7. The fifth plague consisted of a severe mue-
kain, which carried off the cattle (TOj?D, the living property) of
the Egyptians, that were in the field. To show how Pharaoh
was accumulating guilt by his obstinate resistance, in the an-
nouncement of this plague the expression, " If thou refuse to let
them go" (cf. viii. 2), is followed by the words, " and wilt hold
them (the Israelites) still" ("liy still further, even after Jehovah
has so emphatically declared His will). — Ver. 3. " The hand of
Jehovah ivill be (n^n, which only occurs here, as the participle
of nvi, generally takes its form from nin, Neh. vi. 6; Eccl. ii. 22)
against thy cattle . . as a very severe plague (*I31 that which
sweeps away, a plague), i.e. will smite them with a severe plague.
A distinction was again made between the Israelites and the
Egyptians. " Of all (the cattle) belonging to the children of
Israel, not one (pon ver. 4, = T>s Ver. 6) shall die." A definite
CHAP. IX. 8-12. 487
time was also fixed for the coming of the plague, as in the case
of the previous one (viii. 23), in order that, whereas murrains
occasionally occur in Egypt, Pharaoh might discern in his one
the judgment of Jehovah. — Ver. 6. In the words " all the cattle
of the Egyptians died," all is not to he taken in an absolute sense,
but, according to popular usage, as denoting such a quantity, tha
what remained was nothing in comparison ; and, according to
ver. 3. it must be entirely restricted to the cattle in the field.
For, according to vers. 9 and 19, much of the cattle of the
Egyptians still remained even after this murrain, though it ex-
tended to all kinds of cattle, horses, asses, camels, oxen, and
sheep, and differed in this respect from natural murrains. —
Ver. 7. But Pharaoh's heart still continued hardened, though he
convinced himself by direct inquiry that the cattle of the Israel-
ites had been spared.
Vers. 8-12. The sixth plague smote man and beast with
boils breaking fortii in busters. — pntJ> (a common disease
in Egypt, Deut. xxviii. 27) from the unusual word }nt? {in-
caluit) signifies inflammation, then an abscess or boil (Lev. xiii.
18 sqq. ; 2 Kings xx. 7). njnjnx, from V^, to spring up, swell
up, signifies blisters, (fiXv/criSes (LXX), pustules. The natural
substratum of this plague is discovered by most commentators
in the so-called Nile-blisters, which come out in innumerable
little pimples upon the scarlet-coloured skin, and change in a
short space of time into small, round, and thickly-crowded blis-
ters. This is called by the Egyptians Hamm el Nil, or the heat
of the inundation. According to Dr Bilharz, it is a rash, which
occurs in summer, chiefly towards the close at the time of the
overflowing of the Nile, and produces a burning and pricking
sensation upon the skin ; or, in Seetzetts words, " it consists of
small, red, and slightly rounded elevations in the skin, which
give strong twitches and slight stinging sensations, resembling
those of scarlet fever" (p. 209). The cause of this eruption,
which occurs only in men and not in animals, has not been deter-
mined ; some attributing it to the water, and others to the heat.
Leyrer, in Herzofs Cyclopaedia, speaks of the " Anthrax which
stood in a causal relation to the fifth plague ; a black, burning
abscess, which frequently occurs after a murrain, especially the
cattle distemper, and which might be called to mind by the name
av6pa%, coal, and the symbolical sprinkling of the soot of the
488 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
furnace." In any case, the manner in which this plague was
produced was significant, though it cannot be explained with
positive certainty, especially as we are unable to decide exactly
what was the natural disease which lay at the foundation of the
plague. At the command of God, Moses and Aaron took
" handfuls of soot, and sprinkled it towards the heaven, so that it
became dust over all the land of Egypt" i.e. flew like dust over
the land, and became boils on man and beast. ftJQSiri ITS : soot
or ashes of the smelting-furnace or lime-kiln. iCQ3 is not an
oven or cooking stove, but, as Kimchi supposes, a smelting-fui--
nace or lime-kiln ; not so called, however, a metallis domandis,
but from ^03 in its primary signification to press together, hence
(a) to soften, or melt, (b) to tread down. Burders view seems
inadmissible ; namely, that this symbolical act of Moses had some
relation to the expiatory rites of the ancient Egyptians, in which
the ashes of sacrifices, particularly human sacrifices, were scat-
tered about. For it rests upon the supposition that Moses took
the ashes from a fire appropriated to the burning of sacrifices —
a supposition to which neither lKb3 nor ITS is appropriate. For
the former does not signify a fire-place, still less one set apart
for the burning of sacrifices, and the ashes taken from the sacri-
fices for purifying purposes were called "iSX, and not ITS (Num.
xix. 10). Moreover, such an interpretation as this, namely, that
the ashes set apart for purifying purposes produced impurity in
the hands of Moses, as a symbolical representation of the thought,
that "the religious purification promised in the sacrificial worship
of Egypt was really a defilement," does not answer at all to the
effect produced. The ashes scattered in the air by Moses did
not produce defilement, but boils or blisters; and we have no
ground for supposing that they were regarded by the Egyptians
as a religious defilement. And, lastly, there was not one of the
plagues in which the object was to pronounce condemnation
upon the Egyptian worship or sacrifices ; since Pharaoh did not
wish to force the Egyptian idolatry upon the Israelites, but
simply to prevent them from leaving the country.
The ashes or soot of the smelting-furnace or lime-kiln bore,
no doubt, the same relation to the plague arising therefrom, as
the water of the Nile and the dust of the ground to the three
plagues which proceeded from them. As Pharaoh and his people
owed their prosperity, wealth, and abundance of earthly goods
CHAP. IX. 13-53. 10. 489
to the fertilizing waters of the Nile and the fruitful soil, so it
was from the lime-kilns, so to speak, that those splendid cities
and pyramids proceeded, by which the early Pharaohs endea-
voured to immortalize the power and glory of their reigns. And
whilst in the first three plagues the natural sources of the land
were changed by Jehovah, through His servants Moses and
Aaron, into sources of evil, the sixth plague proved to the proud
king that Jehovah also possessed the power to bring ruin upon
him from the workshops of those splendid edifices, for the erec-
tion of which he had made use of the strength of the Israelites,
and oppressed them so grievously with burdensome toil as to
cause Egypt to become like a furnace for smelting iron (Deut.
iv. 20), and that He could make the soot or ashes of the lime-
kiln, the residuum of that fiery heat and emblem of the furnace
in which Israel groaned, into a seed which, when carried through
the air at His command, would produce burning boils on man
and beast throughout all the land of Egypt. These boils were
the first plague which attacked and endangered the lives of men ;
and in this respect it was the first foreboding of the death which
Pharaoh would bring upon himself by his continued resistance.
The priests were so far from being able to shelter the king from
this plague by their secret arts, that they were attacked by them
themselves, were unable to stand before Moses, and were obliged
to give up all further resistance. But Pharaoh did not take
this plague to heart, and was given up to the divine sentence of
hardening.
THE LAST THREE PLAGUES. — CHAP. IX. 13-XI. 10.
As the plagues had thus far entirely failed to bend the un-
yielding heart of Pharaoh under the will of the Almighty God,
the terrors of that judgment, which would infallibly come upon
him, were set before him in three more plagues, which were far
more terrible than any that had preceded them. That these
were to be preparatory to the last decisive blow, is proved by the
great solemnity with which they were announced to the hardened
king (vers. 13-16). This time Jehovah was about to " send all
His strokes at the heart of Pharaoh, and against his servants and
his people" (ver. 14). "^"PX does not signify " against thy per-
son," for 2? is not used for E>23, and even the latter is not a
PENT. — VOL. I. 2 1
490 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
periphrasis for ''person;" but the strokes were to go to the
king's heart. " It announces that they will be plagues that will
not only strike the head and arms, but penetrate the very heart,
and inflict a mortal wound" (Calvin). From the plural " strokes"
it is evident that this threat referred not only to the seventh
plague, viz. the hail, but to all the other plagues, through which
Jehovah was about to make known to the king that " there was
none like Him in all the earth ;" i.e. that not one of the gods whom
the heathen worshipped was like Him, the only true God. For,
in order to show this, Jehovah had not smitten Pharaoh and his
people at once with pestilence and cut them off from the earth,
but had set him up to make him see, i.e. discern or feel His
power, and to glorify His name in all the earth (vers. 15, 16).
In ver. 15 'til "'Hlw (I have stretched out, etc.) is to be taken as
the conditional clause : " If I had now stretched out My hand and
smitten thee . . . thou ivouldest have been cut off." T'iHBJJfl forms
the antithesis to *in3Fi? and means to cause to stand or continue,
as in 1 Kings xv. 4, 2 Chron. ix. 8 (Stern pij6n<; LXX.). Caus-
ing to stand presupposes setting up. In this first sense the
Apostle Paul has rendered it igijyeipa in Pom. ix. 17, in accord-
ance with the purport of his argument, because " God thereby
appeared still more decidedly as absolutely determining all that
was done by Pharaoh" (Philippi on Pom. ix. 17). The reason 4
why God had not destroyed Pharaoh at once was twofold : (1)
that Pharaoh himself might experience (HNnn to cause to see, i.e.
to experience) the might of Jehovah, by which he was compelled
more than once to give glory to Jehovah (ver. 27, chap. x. 16, 17,
xii. 31) ; and (2) that the name of Jehovah might be declared
throughout all the earth. As both the rebellion of the natural
man against the word and will of God, and the hostility of the
world-power to the Lord and His people, were concentrated in
Pharaoh, so there were manifested in the judgments suspended
over him the patience and grace of the living God, quite as much
as His holiness, justice, and omnipotence, as a warning to im-
penitent sinners, and a support to the faith of the godly, in a
manner that should be typical for all times and circumstances of
the kingdom of God in conflict with the ungodly world. The
report of this glorious manifestation of Jehovah spread at once
among all the surrounding nations (cf. xv. 14 sqq.), and travelled
not only to the Arabians, but to the Greeks and Romans also,
CHAP. IX. 17-35. 491
and eventually with the Gospel of Chri&t to all the nations of
the earth (yid. Tholuck on Bom. ix. 17).
Chap. ix. 17-35. The seventh plague. — To break down Pha-
raoh's opposition, Jehovah determined to send such a hail as
had not been heard of since the founding of Egypt, accompanied
by thunder and masses of fire, and to destroy every man and
beast that should be in the field. ^iflD!? V$ : " thou still dam-
mest thyself up against My people." P^nDPI : to set one's self as
a dam, i.e. to oppose ; from W»D, to heap up earth as a dam or
rampart. " To-morrow about this time" to give Pharaoh time
for reflection. Instead of " from the day that Egypt was founded
until now," we find in ver. 24 " since it became a nation" since
its existence as a kingdom or nation. — Ver. 19. The good advice
to be given by Moses to the king, to secure the men and cattle
that were in the field, i.e. to put them under shelter, which was
followed by the God-fearing Egyptians (ver. 21), was a sign of
divine mercy, which would still rescue the hardened man and
save him from destruction. Even in Pharaoh's case the possibi-
lity still existed of submission to the will of God ; the hardening
was not yet complete. But as he paid no heed to the word of
the Lord, the predicted judgment was fulfilled (vers. 22-26).
" Jehovah gave voices" (riSp) ; called " voices of God" in ver 28.
This term is applied to the thunder (cf. xix. 16, xx. 18 ; Ps.
xxix. 3-9), as being the mightiest manifestation of the omnipo-
tence of God, which speaks therein to men (Eev. x. 3, 4), and
warns them of the terrors of judgment. These terrors were
heightened by masses of fire, which came down from the sky
along with the hail that smote man and beast in the field, de-
stroyed the vegetables, and shattered the trees. " And fire ran
along upon the ground :" ^nfl is a Kal, though it sounds like Hith-
pael, and signifies grassari, as in Ps. lxxiii. 9. — Ver. 24. "Fire
mingled ;" lit. collected together, i.e. formed into balls (cf. Ezek.
i. 4). " The lightning took the form of balls of fire, which
came down like burning torches." — Ver. 25. The expressions,
" every herb" and " every tree" are not to be taken absolutely,
just as in ver. 6, as we may see from chap. x. 5. Storms are
not common in Lower or Middle Egypt, but they occur most
frequently between the months of December and April; and
hail sometimes accompanies them, though not with great severity.
In themselves, therefore, thunder, lightning, and hail were not
492 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
unheard of. They also came at the time of year when they
usually occur, namely, when the cattle were in the field, i.e.
between January and April, the only period in which cattle are
turned out for pasture (for proofs, see Hengstenberg, Egypt and
the Books of Moses). The supernatural character of this plague
was manifested, not only in its being predicted by Moses, and in
the exemption of the land of Goshen, but more especially in the
terrible fury of the hail-storm, which made a stronger impression
upon Pharaoh than all the previous plagues. For he sent for
Moses and Aaron, and confessed to them, u I have sinned this
time : Jehovah is righteous ; land my people are the sinners" (vers.
27 sqq.). But the very limitation " this time" showed that his
repentance did not go very deep, and that his confession was far
more the effect of terror caused by the majesty of God, which
was manifested in the fearful thunder and lightning, than a
genuine acknowledgment of his guilt. This is apparent also
from the words which follow : " Pray to Jehovah for me, and let
it be enough (3T satis, as in Gen. xlv. 28) of the being (n*v9) of
the voices of God and of the hail ;" i.e. there has been enough
thunder and hail, they may cease now. — Ver. 29. Moses promised
that his request should be granted, that he might know " that the
land belonged to Jehovah," i.e. that Jehovah ruled as Lord over
Egypt (cf. viii. 18) ; at the same time he told him that the fear
manifested by himself and his servants was no true fear of God.
'" ifeD fcOJ denotes the true fear of God, which includes a volun-
tary subjection to the divine will. Observe the expression, Jeho-
vah, Elohim : Jehovah, who is Elohim, the Being to be honoured
as supreme, the true God.
The account of the loss caused by the hail is introduced very
appropriately in vers. 31 and 32, to show how much had been
lost, and how much there Avas still to lose through continued
refusal. " The flax and the barley were smitten, for the barley
was ear, and the flax was ^33 (blosso7n) ; i.e. they were neither
of them quite ripe, but they were already in car and blossom, so
that they were broken and destroyed by the hail. " The wheat"
on the other hand, " and the spelt zcere not broken doivn, because
they were tender, or late" (ri^SN) ; i.e. they had no ears as yet,
and therefore could not be broken by the hail. These accounts
are in harmony with the natural history of Egypt. According
to I 'liny, the barley is reaped in the sixth month after the sow-
CHAP. X. 1-20. 493
The barley is ripe about
the end of February or beginning of March ; the wheat, at the
end of March or beginning of April. The flax is in flower at
the end of January. In the neighbourhood of Alexandria, and
therefore quite in the north of Egypt, the spelt is ripe at the end
of April, and farther south it is probably somewhat earlier; for,
according to other accounts, the wheat and spelt ripen at the same
time (vid. Hengstenberg, p. 119). Consequently the plague of
hail occurred at the end of January, or at the latest in the first
half of February ; so that there were at least eight weeks between
the seventh and tenth plagues. The hail must have smitten the
half, therefore, of the most important field-produce, viz. the
barley, which was a valuable article of food both for men, espe-
cially the poorer classes, and for cattle, and the flax, which was
also a very important part of the produce of Egypt ; whereas
the spelt, of which the Egyptians preferred to make their bread
{Herod. 2, 3(3, 77), and the wheat were still spared. — Vers. 33-
35. But even this plague did not lead Pharaoh to alter his mind.
As soon as it had ceased on the intercession of Moses, he and
his servants continued sinning and hardening their hearts.
Chap. x. 1-20. The eighth plague; the locusts. — Vers.
1-6. As Pharaoh's pride still refused to bend to the will of God,
Moses was directed to announce another, and in some respects
a more fearful, plague. At the same time God strengthened
Moses' faith, by telling him that the hardening of Pharaoh and
his servants was decreed by Him, that these signs might be done
among them, and that Israel might perceive by this to all gene-
rations that He was Jehovah (cf. vii. 3-5). We may learn from
Ps. lxxviii. and cv. in what manner the Israelites narrated these
signs to their children and children's children, nhk TPW, to set
or prepare signs (ver. 1), is interchanged with Die? (ver. 2) in the
same sense (vid. chap. viii. 12). The suffix in talfja (ver. 1) refers
to Egypt as a country ; and that in D2 (ver. 2) to the Egyptians.
In the expression, "thou mayest tell" Moses is addressed as the
representative of the nation. <^nn : to have to do with a per-
son, generally in a bad sense, to do him harm (1 Sam. xxxi. 4).
" How I have put forth My might" (He Wette).— Ver. 3. As
Pharaoh had acknowledged, when the previous plague was sent,
that Jehovah was righteous (ix. 27), his crime was placed still
more strongly before him : " How long wilt thou refuse to humble
494 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
thyself before Me?" (ni$ for Ttyrh, as in chap, xxxiv. 24).—
Vers. 4 sqq. To punish this obstinate refusal, Jehovah would
bring locusts in such dreadful swarms as Egypt had never known
before, which would eat up all the plants left by the hail, and
even fill the houses. " They will cover the eye of the earth."
This expression, which is peculiar to the Pentateuch, and only
occurs again in ver. 15 and Num. xxii. 5, 11, is based upon the
ancient and truly poetic idea, that the earth, with its covering of
plants, looks up to man. To substitute the rendering "surface"
for the " eye," is to destroy the real meaning of the figure ;
" face" is better. It was in the swarms that actually hid the
ground that the fearful character of the plague consisted, as the
swarms of locusts consume everything green. " The residue of
the escape" is still further explained as " that which remaineth
unto you from the hail," viz. the spelt and wheat, and all the
vegetables that were left (vers. 12 and 15). For "all the trees
that sprout" (ver. 5), we find in ver. 15, "all the tree-fruits and
everything green upon the trees."
Vers. 7-11. The announcement of such a plague of locusts,
as their forefathers had never seen before since their existence
upon earth, i.e. since the creation of man (ver. 6), put the ser-
vants of Pharaoh in such fear, that they tried to persuade the
king to let the Israelites go. " How long shall this (Moses) be a
snare to us? . . . Seest thou not yet, that Egypt is destroyed?"''
tt'pto, a snare or trap for catching animals, is a figurative expres-
sion for destruction. B^xn (ver. 7) does not mean the men,
but the people. The servants wished all the people to be allowed
to go as Moses had desired ; but Pharaoh would only consent to
the departure of the men (E^L1, ver. 11). — Ver. 8. As Moses
had left Pharaoh after announcing the plague, he was fetched
back again along with Aaron, in consequence of the appeal made
to the king by his servants, and asked by the king, how many
wanted to go to the feast. W ^, uioho and who still further
are the going ones ;" i.e. those who wish to go ? Moses required
the whole nation to depart, without regard to age or sex, along
with all their flocks and herds. He mentioned " young and old,
sons and daughters ;" the wives as belonging to the men being
included in the " ice." Although he assigned a reason for this
demand, viz. that they were to hold a feast to Jehovah, Pharaoh
was so indignant, that he answered scornfully at first : "Be it so;
CHAP. X. 12-15. 495
Jehovah be with you when I let you and your little Ones go ;" i.e. may
Jehovah help you in the same way in which I let you and your
little ones go. This indicated contempt not only for Moses and
Aaron, but also for Jehovah, who had nevertheless proved Him-
self, by His manifestations of mighty power, to be a God who
would not suffer Himself to be trifled with. After this utterance /
of his ill-will, Pharaoh told the messengers of God that he could
see through their intention. "Evil is before your face ;" i.e. you
have evil in view. He called their purpose an evil one, because
they wanted to withdraw the people from his service. u Not so"
i.e. let it not be as you desire. " Go then, you men, and serve
Jehovah" But even this concession was not seriously meant.
This is evident from the expression, " Go then," in which the
irony is unmistakeable ; and still more so from the fact, that with
these words he broke off all negotiation with Moses and Aaron,
and drove them from his presence. BH3M : " one drove them
forth ;" the subject is not expressed, because it is clear enough
that the royal servants who were present were the persons who
drove them away. " For this are ye seeking :" i^k relates simply
to the words " serve Jehovah," by which the king understood
the sacrificial festival, for which in his opinion only the men
could be wanted ; not that " he supposed the people for whom
Moses had asked permission to go, to mean only the men"
(Knobel). The restriction of the permission to depart to the
men alone was pure caprice ; for even the Egyptians, according
to Herodotus (2, 60), held religious festivals at which the women
were in the habit of accompanying the men.
Vers. 12—15. After His messengers had been thus scornfully
treated, Jehovah directed Moses to bring the threatened plague
upon the land. " Stretch out thy hand over the land of Egypt
with locusts ;" i.e. so that the locusts may come. fw, to go up :
the word used for a hostile invasion. The locusts are repre-
sented as an army, as in Joel i. 6. Locusts were not an un-
known scourge in Egypt ; and in the case before us they were
brought, as usual, by the wind. The marvellous character of
the phenomenon was, that when Moses stretched out his hand
over Egypt with the staff, Jehovah caused an east wind to blow
over the land, which blew a day and a night, and the next
morning brought the locusts ("brought ;" inasmuch as the swarms
of locusts are really brought by the wind). — Ver. 13. "An east
496 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
wind : not votos (LXX.), the south wind, as Bochart supposed.
Although the swarms of locusts are generally brought into Egypt
from Libya or Ethiopia, and therefore by a south or south-west
wind, they are sometimes brought by the east wind from Arabia,
as Denon and others have observed (Hgstb. p. 120). The fact
that the wind blew a day and a night before bringing the locusts,
showed that they came from a great distance, and therefore
proved to the Egyptians that the omnipotence of Jehovah reached
far beyond the borders of Egypt, and ruled over every land.
Another miraculous feature in this plague was its unparalleled
extent, viz. over the whole of the land of Egypt, whereas ordi-
nary swarms are confined to particular districts. In this respect
the judgment had no equal either before or afterwards (ver. 14).
The words, " Before them there were no such locusts as they, neither
after them shall be such" must not be diluted into " a hyper-
bolical and proverbial saying, implying that there was' no recol-
lection of such noxious locusts," as it is by Rosenmiiller. This
passage is not at variance with Joel ii. 2, for the former relates
to Egypt, the latter to the land of Israel ; and Joel's description
unquestionably refers to the account before us, the meaning
being, that quite as terrible a judgment would fall upon Judah
and Israel as had formerly been inflicted upon Egypt and the
obdurate Pharaoh. In its dreadful character, this Egyptian
plague is a type of the plagues which will precede the last judg-
ment, and forms the groundwork for the description in Rev. ix.
3-10 ; just as Joel discerned in the plagues which burst upon
Judah in his own day a presage of the day of the Lord (Joel i.
15, ii. 1), i.e. of the great day of judgment, which is advancing
step by step in all the great judgments of history or rather of
the conflict between the kingdom of God and the powers of this
world, and will be finally accomplished in the last general judg-
ment.— Ver. 15. The darkening of the land, and the eating up
of all the green plants by swarms of locusts, have been described
by many eye-witnesses of such plagues. "Locustarum plerumque
tanta conspicitur in Africa frequentia, ut volantes instar nebulce
solis radios operiant" {Leo Afric). " Solemque obumbrant"
(Pliny, h. n. ii. 20).
Vers. 16-20. This plague, which even Pliny calls Deorum
ira3 pestis, so terrified Pharaoh, that he sent for Moses and
Aaron in haste, confessed his sin against Jehovah and them,
CHAP. X. 21-29. 497
and entreated them but this once more to procure, through their
intercession with Jehovah their God, the forgiveness of his sin
and the removal of u this death." He called the locusts death, as
bringing death and destruction, and ruining the country. Mors
etiam agrorum est et herbarum atque arborum, as Bochart observes
with references to Gen. xlvii. 19 ; Job xiv. 8 : Ps. xlviii. 47. —
Vers. 18, 19. To show the hardened king the greatness of the
divine long-suffering, Moses prayed to the Lord, and the Lord
cast the locusts into the Red Sea by a strong west wind. The
expression "Jehovah turned a very strong west wind"- is a con-
cise form, for "Jehovah turned the wind into a very strong
west wind." The fact that locusts do perish in the sea is at-
tested by many authorities. Gregatim sublatce vento in maria
ant stagna decidunt (Pliny) ; many others are given by Bochart
and Volney. Wi^*! '• He thrust them, i.e. drove them with irre-
sistible force, into the Eed Sea. The Red Sea is called ^D D^
according to the ordinary supposition, on account of the quantity
of sea-weed which floats upon the water and lies upon the shore;
but Knob el traces the name to a town which formerly stood at
the head of the gulf, and derived its name from the weed, and
supports his opinion by the omission of the article before Suph,
though without being able to prove that any such town really
existed in the earlier times of the Pharaohs.
Vers. 21-29. Ninth plague: the darkness.— As Pha-
raoh's defiant spirit was not broken yet, a continuous darkness
came over all the land of Egypt, with the exception of Goshen,
without any previous announcement, and came in such force
that the darkness could be felt. S]KTI W1 : "and one shall feel,
grasp darkness." ^bn : as in Ps. cxv. 7, Judg. xvi. 26, ■tyrfkafyrj-
rhv (tkotos (LXX.) ; not " feel in the dark," for TO has this
meaning only in the Piel with 3 (Dent, xxviii. 29). n£ax S]B>n :
darkness of obscurity, i.e. the deepest darkness. The combina-
tion of two words or synonyms gives the greatest intensity to the
thought. The darkness was so great that they could not see
one another, and no one rose up from his place. The Israelites
alone u had light in their dwelling-places^ The reference here
is not to the houses ; so that we must not infer that the Egyp-
tians were unable to kindle any lights even in their houses. The
cause of this darkness is not given in the text ; but the analogy
of the other plagues, which had all of them a natural basis,
498 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES.
there was the same here — that it was in fact the Chamsin, to
which the LXX. evidently allude in their rendering : gkotos
koX 7^0^09 Kal OveWa. This wind, which generally blows in
Egypt before and after the vernal equinox and lasts two or
three days, usually rises very suddenly, and fills the air with
such a quantity of fine dust and coarse sand, that the sun loses
its brightness, the sky is covered with a dense veil, and it be-
comes so dark that " the obscurity caused by the thickest fog in
our autumn and winter days is nothing in comparison" (Schu-
bert). Both men and animals hide themselves from this storm ;
and the inhabitants of the towns and villages shut themselves up
in the innermost rooms and cellars of their houses till it is over,
for the dust penetrates even through well-closed windows. For
fuller accounts taken from travels, see Hengstenberg (pp. 120
sqq.) and Robinson s Palestine i. pp. 287-289. Seetzen attri-
butes the rising of the dust to a quantity of electrical fluid con-
tained in the air. — The fact that in this case the darkness alone
is mentioned, may have arisen from its symbolical importance.
" The darkness which covered the Egyptians, and the light
which shone upon the Israelites, were types of the wrath and
grace of God" (Hengstenberg). This occurrence, in which,
according to Arabian chroniclers of the middle ages, the nations
discerned a foreboding of the day of judgment or of the resur-
rection, filled the king with such alarm that he sent for Moses,
and told him he would let the people and their children go, but
the cattle must be left behind. MP : sistatu?', let it be placed,
deposited in certain places under the guard of Egyptians, as a
pledge of your return. Maneat in pignus, quod reversuri sitis, as
Chaskuni correctly paraphrases it. But Moses insisted upon the
cattle being taken for the sake of their sacrifices and burnt-
offerings. " Not a hoof shall be left behind." This was a pro-
verbial expression for "not the smallest fraction." Bochart
gives instances of a similar introduction of the "hoof" into
proverbial sayings by both Arabians and Romans (Ilieroz. i. p.
490). This firmness on the part of Moses he defended by say-
ing, " We know not ivith what xce shall serve the Lord, till we
come thither ;" i.e. we know not yet what kind of animals or how
many we shall require for the sacrifices; our God will not make
this known to us till we arrive at the place of sacrifice. *i?V :
CHAP. XI. 1-8. 499
with a double accusative as in Gen. xxx. 29 ; to serve any one
with a thing. — Vers. 27 sqq. At this demand, Pharaoh, with the
hardness suspended over him by God, fell into such wrath, that
he sent Moses away, and threatened him with death, if he ever
appeared in his presence again. "See my face,'" as in Gen. xliii.
3. Moses answered, " Thou hast spoken rightly? For as God
had already told him that the last blow would be followed by
the immediate release of the people, there was no further neces-
sity for him to appear before Pharaoh.
Chap. xi. Proclamation of the tenth plague; or
the decisive BLOW. — Vers. 1—3. The announcement made by
Jehovah to Moses, which is recorded here, occurred before the
last interview between Moses and Pharaoh (x. 24-29) ; but it
is introduced by the historian in this place, as serving to explain
the confidence with which Moses answered Pharaoh (x. 29).
This is evident from vers. 4-8, where Moses is said to have fore-
told to the king, before leaving his presence, the last plague and
all its consequences. "i£Ns5 therefore, in ver. 1, is to be taken in
a pluperfect sense: "had said;" and may be grammatically
accounted for from the old Semitic style of historical writing
referred to at p. 87, as vers. 1 and 2 contain the foundation for
the announcement in vers. 4-8. So far as the facts are con-
cerned, vers. 1-3 point back to chap. hi. 19-22. One stroke
more (JN3) would Jehovah bring upon Pharaoh and Egypt, and
then the king would let the Israelites go, or rather drive them
out. n?3 topB>3, " when he lets you go altogether (!"!73 adverbial
as in Gen. xviii. 21), he will even drive you away." — Vers. 2, 3.
In this way Jehovah would overcome the resistance of Pharaoh ;
and even more than that, for Moses was to tell the people to ask
the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold, for Jehovah would
make them willing to give. The renown acquired by Moses
through his miracles in Egypt would also contribute to this.
(For the discussion of this subject, see chap. iii. 21, 22.) The
communication of these instructions to the people is not expressly
mentioned ; but it is referred to in chap. xii. 35, 36, as having
taken place.
Vers. 4-8. Moses' address to Pharaoh forms the continuation
of his brief answer in chap. x. 29. At midnight Jehovah would
go out through the midst of Egypt. This midnight could not
500 THE SECOND BOOK OF MOSES
be " the one following the day on which Moses was summoned
to Pharaoh after the darkness," as Baumgarten supposes ; for it
was not till after this conversation with the king that Moses re-
ceived the divine directions as to the Passover, and they must
have been communicated to the people at least four days be-
fore the feast of the Passover and their departure from Egypt
(chap. xii. 3). What midnight is meant, cannot be determined.
So much is certain, however, that the last decisive blow did not
take place in the night following the cessation of the ninth
plague ; but the institution of the Passover, the directions of
Moses to the people respecting the things which they were to
ask for from the Egyptians, and the preparations for the feast of
the Passover and the exodus, all came between. The u going
out" of Jehovah from His heavenly seat denotes His direct
interposition in, and judicial action upon, the world of men.
The last blow upon Pharaoh was to be carried out by Jehovah
Himself, whereas the other plagues had been brought by Moses
and Aaron. OH-p "Hinn " in (through) the midst of Egypt :" the
judgment of God would pass from the centre of the kingdom,
the king's throne, over the whole land. " Every first-born shall
die, from the first-born of Pharaoh, that sitteth upon his throne,
even unto the first-born of the maid that is behind the mill" i.e. the
meanest slave (cf. chap. xii. 29, where the captive in the dungeon
is substituted for the maid, prisoners being often employed in
this hard labour, Judg. xvi. 2 1 ; Isa. xlvii. 2), " and all the
first-born of cattle." This stroke was to fall upon both man and
beast as a punishment for Pharaoh's conduct in detaining the
Israelites and their cattle ; but only upon the first-born, for God
did not wish to destroy the Egyptians and their cattle altogether,
but simply to show them that He had the power to do this. The
first-born represented the whole race, of which it was the strength
and bloom (Gen. xlix. 3). But against the whole of the people
of Israel unot a dog shall point its tongue" (ver. 7). The dog
points its tongue to growl and bite. The thought expressed in
this proverb, which occurs again in Josh. x. 21 and Judith xi.
19, was that Israel would not suffer the slightest injury, either
in the case of " man or beast." By this complete preservation,
whilst Egypt was given up to death, Israel would discover that
Jehovah had completed the separation between them and the
Egyptians. The effect of this stroke upon the Egyptians would
CHAP. XI. 9, 10. 501
be "a great cry" having no parallel before or after (cf. x. 14) ;
and the consequence of this cry would be, that the servants of
Pharaoh would come to Moses and entreat them to go out with
all the people. "At thy feet" i.e. in thy train (vid. Deut. xi. 6 ;
Judg. viii. 5). With this announcement Moses departed from
Pharaoh in great wrath. Moses' wrath was occasioned by the
king's threat (chap. x. 28), and pointed to the wrath of Jeho-
vah, which Pharaoh would soon experience. As the more than
human patience which Moses had displayed towards Pharaoh
manifested to him the long-suffering and patience of his God,
in whose name and by whose authority he acted, so the wrath of
the departing servant of God was to show to the hardened king,
that the time of grace was at an end, and the wrath of God was
about to- burst upon him.
In vers. 9 and 10 the account of Moses' negotiations with
Pharaoh, which commenced at chap. vii. 8, is brought to a close.
What God predicted to His messengers immediately before
sending them to Pharaoh (chap. vii. 3), and to Moses before
his call (iv. 21), had now come to pass. And this was the
pledge that the still further announcement of Jehovah in chap,
vii. 4 and iv. 23, which had already been made known to the
hardened king (vers. 4 sqq.), would be carried out. As these
verses have a terminal character, the vav consecutive in l^N9} de-
notes the order of thought and not of time, and the two verses
are to be rendered thus : " As Jehovah had said to Moses, Pha-
raoh will not hearken unto you, that My wonders may be mul-
tiplied in the land of Egypt, Moses and Aaron did all these
wonders before Pharaoh ; and Jehovah hardened Pharaoh's
heart, so that he did not let the children of Israel go out of his
land."
END OF VOLUME I.
1IUKRAY AND GIBH, I'KLNTEKS, EDINBURGH.
Date Due
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